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BEQUEST OF 

ALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS 
(Not available for exchange) 











. 


















. . 




























































Mad 




PZ3 

. I'A 445 


Copyright, 1910, by 

THE PEARSON PUBLISHING CO. 

Entered at Stationers’ Hall 
London, England 

Bequest 

Albert Adsit Clemona 
Aug. 24, 1938 
(Not available for exchange) 


Typography, Plates , Presswork and Binding by 
T he J. J. Little dr 3 Ives Co . , New York. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Mad i 

A Night in Whitechapel 44 

Under the Yoke 53 

The Real One and the Other 59 

The Carters' Inn 64 

The Marquis . 69 

An Adventure 78 

The Upstart . 85 

The Old° Maid 91 

The JenNet . . 104 

The Man with the Blue Eyes 115 

The Accent 122 

A Rupture . " . 134 

In His Sweetheart's Livery 139 

Ugly . . . 147 

Virtue Hsr the Ballet 152 

An Honest Ideal 159 

The Venus of Braniza 168 

Kind Girls 172 

Violated 177 


IV 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Delila ...•••••••• 184 

The Ill-omened Groom 193 

Charm of the Stable 202 

The Viaticum 207 

Crash ! 214 

A Mesalliance * 219 

The Odalisque of Senichou 230 

A Good Match 240 

A Fashionable Woman 249 

The Carnival of Love 258 

A Deer Park in the Provinces 268 

The White Lady 273 

Caught 281 

Countess Satan 286 

The Mountebanks 294 

The Clown . . 302 

Lilie Lala . 309 

Mamma Stirling « 316 

An Artist . 329 

The Debt . - 336 


MAD 


Part I 

F OR days and days, nights and nights, I had 
dreamed of that first kiss which was to con- 
secrate our engagement, and I knew not on 
what spot I should put my lips. Not on her fore- 
head, that was accustomed to family caresses, nor 
on her light hair, which mercenary hands had 
dressed, nor on her eyes, whose curling lashes 
looked like little wings, because that would have 
made me think of the farewell caress which closes 
the eyelids of some dead woman whom one has 
adored, nor her lovely mouth, which I will not, 
which I must not, possess until that divine moment 
when Elaine will at last belong to me altogether 
and for always, but on that delicious little dimple 
which comes in one of her cheeks when she is 
happy, when she smiles, and which excited me as 
much as her voice did with languorous softness, on 
that evening when our flirtation began, at the Sou- 
verettes’. 

Our parents had gone out, and were walking 
slowly under the chestnut trees in the garden, and 
had left us entirely alone for a few minutes. I went 


2 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


up to her and took both her hands Into mine, which 
were trembling, and gently drawing her close to 
me, I whispered: 

“ How happy I am, Elaine, and how I love you ! ” 
and I kissed her almost timidly, on the dimple. She 
trembled, as if from the pain of a burn, blushed 
deeply, and with an affectionate look she said : “ I 
love you also, Jacques, and I am very happy!” 

That embarrassment, that sudden emotion which 
revealed the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, 
the instinctive recoil of virginity, that childlike in- 
nocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above 
everything as a presage of happiness. It seemed 
to me as if I were unworthy of her; I was almost 
ashamed of bringing to her and of putting into her 
small, saintlike hands the remains of a damaged 
heart, that had been polluted by debauchery, that 
miserable thing which had served as a toy for un- 
worthy mistresses, which was intoxicated with lies, 
and felt as if it would die of bitterness and disgust. 

Part II 

How quickly she has become accustomed to me, 
how suddenly she has turned into a woman and 
become metamorphosed! Already she no longer is 
at all like the artless girl, the sensitive child, to 
whom I did not know what to say, and whose sud- 
den questions disconcerted me. 

She is coquettish, and there is seduction in her 
attitudes, in her gestures, in her laugh, and in her 


MAD 


3 


touch. One might think that she was trying her 
power over me, and that she guesses that I no 
longer have any will of my own. She does with 
me whatever she likes, and I am quite incapable of 
resisting the beautiful charm that emanates from 
her, and I feel carried away by her caressing hands, 
and so happy that I am at times frightened at the 
excess of my own felicity. 

My life now passes amid the most delicious of 
punishments, those afternoons and evenings that 
we spend together, those unconstrained moments 
when, sitting on the sofa together, she rests her 
head on my shoulder, holds my hands, and half 
shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our 
future life shall be; when I cover her with kisses 
and inhale the odour of all that soft fluffy hair that is 
as fine as silk, like a halo round her imperial brow. 
All this excites me, unsettles me, kills me, and yet 
I feel inclined to shed tears when the time comes 
for us to part, and I really only exist when I am 
with Elaine. 

I can scarcely sleep; I see her rise up in the 
darkness, delicate, fair, and pink, so supple, so ele- 
gant with her small waist and tiny hands and feet, 
her graceful head and that look of mockery and of 
coaxing which lies in her smile, that brightness of 
the dawn which illuminates her looks, and when I 
think that she is going to become my wife, I feel 
inclined to sing, and to shout out my amorous folly 
into the silence of the night. 

Elaine also seems to be at the end of her strength, 
has grown languid and nervous; she would like to 


4 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


wipe out the fortnight that we still have to wait, 
and so little does she hide her longing that one of 
her uncles, Colonel d’Orthez, said after dinner the 
other evening : “ By Jove, my children, one would 
take you for two soldiers who are looking forward 
to their furlough ! ” 


Part III 

I do not know what I felt, or whence those fears 
came which so suddenly assailed me, and took pos- 
session of my whole being, like a flight of poisoned 
arrows. The nearer the day approaches that I am 
so ardently longing for, on which Elaine will take 
my name and belong to me, the more anxious, ner- 
vous, and tormented by the uncertainty of the mor- 
row I feel. 

I love and I am passionately loved, and few 
couples start on the unknown journey of a totally 
new life and enter into matrimony with such hopes, 
and the same assurance of happiness, as we two. 

I have such faith in the girl I am going to marry, 
and have made her such vows of love, that I should 
certainly kill myself without a moment’s hesitation 
if anything were to happen to separate us, to force 
us to a comme il faut but irremediable rupture, or 
if Elaine were seized by some illness which carried 
her off quickly. And yet I hesitate, I am afraid, 
for I know that many others have made shipwreck, 
lost their love on the way, disenchanted their wives, 


MAD 


5 


and have themselves been disenchanted in those first 
essays of possession. 

What does Elaine expect in her vague innocence, 
which has been lessened by the half-confidences of 
married friends, by semi-avowals, by all the kisses 
of this sort of apprenticeship which is a court of 
love? What does she possess? What does she 
hope for ? Oh ! to think that one is risking one’s 
whole future happiness at such a hazardous game, 
that the merest trifle might make a man com- 
pletely ridiculous or hopeful, and make an idolized 
woman laugh or cry! 

I do not know a more desirable, prettier, or 
more attractive being in the whole world than 
Elaine ; I am worn out by feverish love, and I wish 
every particle of her being to belong to me ; I love 
her ardently, but I would willingly give half that 
I possess to have got through this ordeal, to be a 
week older, and still happy! 

Part IV 

My mother-in-law took me aside yesterday, while 
they were dancing, and with tears in her eyes she 
said in a tremulous voice: 

“ You are going to possess the utmost precious 
object that we possess here, and what we love best 
: — I beg you to always spare the slightest unhap- 
piness, and to be kind and gentle toward her. I 
count on your uprightness and affection to guide 
her and protect her in this dangerous life in Paris.” 


6 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


And then, giving way to her feelings more and 
more, she added : “ I do not think that you suppose 
that I have tried to instruct her in her new duties 
or to disturb her charming innocence, which has 
been my work ; when two persons worship each 
other like you two do, a girl learns what she is 
ignorant of so quickly and so well ! ” 

I very nearly burst out laughing in her face, for 
such a theatrical phrase appeared to me both ridicu- 
lous and doubtful. So that respectable woman had 
always been a passive, pliable, inert object, who 
never had one moment of vibration, of tender emo- 
tion in her husband’s arms, and I understood why, 
as I wasted time at the clubs, he escaped from her 
as soon as possible and formed other liaisons which 
cost him dear, but in which he found at least some 
appearance of love. 

And that piece of advice, at the last moment, 
which was so commonplace and natural, and which 
I ought to have expected, enervated me and, in 
spite of myself, plunged me into a state of per- 
plexity, from which I could not extricate myself. 
I remembered those absurd stories which we hear 
among friends, after a good dinner. What would 
be that last trial of our love for her and for me, 
and would that love which then was my whole life 
come out of the ordeal lessened or increased ten- 
fold? And when I looked at the couch on which 
Elaine, my adored Elaine, was sitting, with her 
head half-hidden behind the feathers of her fan, she 
whispered in a rather vexed voice : 

“ How cross you look, my dear Jacques ! Is the 


MAD 


7 


fact that you are to be married the cause of it? 
And you have such a mocking look on your face. 
If the thought of it terrifies you too much, there 
is still time to say no!” 

And, delighted, bewitched by her caressing looks, 
I said in a low voice, almost into her small ear : 

“ I adore you ; and these last moments that still 
separate us seem centuries to me, my dear Elaine ! ” 

Part V 

There were tiresome ceremonies yesterday and 
to-day which I went through almost mechanically. 

First, there is the yes before the Mayor at the 
civil ceremony, like some everyday response in 
church, which one is in a hurry to get over, and 
which has almost the suggestion of an imperious 
law, to which one is bound to submit, and of a state 
of bondage, which will, perhaps, be very irksome, 
since the whole of existence is made up of chance. 

And then the service in church, with the dec- 
orated altar, the voices of the choir, the solemn 
music of the organ, the unctuous address of the old 
priest, who marked his periods, who seemed quite 
proud of having prepared Elaine for confirmation, 
and then the procession of the vestry, the shaking 
hands, and the greetings of people whom you 
scarcely see, and whom you do, or do not, recognize. 

Under the long tulle veil, which almost covered 
her, with the symbolical orange flowers on her 
bright, light hair, in her white dress, with her 


8 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


downcast eyes and her graceful figure, Elaine 
looked to me like a Psyche, whose innocent heart 
was vowed to love. I felt how vain and artificial 
all this form was, how little this show counted 
before the kiss, the triumphant, revealing, mad- 
dening kiss, which sealed our nuptial vow. 


Part VI 

Elaine loves me as much as I adore her. 

She left her parental abode, as if she were going 
to some festivity, without once turning toward all 
that she had left behind, in the way of affection 
and recollection, and without even a farewell tear. 

She looked like a bird which had escaped from 
its cage and does not know where to settle, which 
beats its wings in the intoxication of the light, and 
which warbles incessantly. She repeated the same 
words, as if she were dazed, and her laugh sounded 
like the cooing of a pigeon, and looking into my 
eyes, with her eyes full of languor and her arms 
round my neck like a bracelet and with her burning 
cheek against mine, she suddenly exclaimed : 

“ I say, my darling, would you not give ten years 
of your life to have already got to the end of the 
journey? ” 

This question so disconcerted me that I did not 
know what to reply, and my brain reeled, as if I 
had been at the edge of a precipice. Did she al- 
ready know what her mother had not told her? 
Had she already learned what she ought to have 


MAD 


9 


been ignorant of? And had that heart, which I 
used to compare to the Vessel of Election, of which 
the litanies of Our Lady speak, already been dam- 
aged ? 

Oh! white veils that hide the blushes, the half- 
closed eyes, and the trembling lips of some Psyche; 
oh! little hands which you raised in an attitude 
of prayer toward the lighted and decorated altar; 
oh! innocent and charming questions, which de- 
lighted me to the depths of my being, and which 
seemed to me to be an absolute promise of happi- 
ness, were you nothing but a lie, and a wonderfully 
well-acted piece of trickery? 

But was I not wrong, and an idiot, to allow such 
thoughts to take possession of me and to poison 
my deep, absorbing love, which was now my only 
law and my only object, by odious and foolish sug- 
gestions? What an abject and miserable nature I 
must have, for such a simple, affectionate, natural 
question to disturb me so, when I ought immedi- 
ately to have replied to Elaine’s question, with all 
my heart that belonged to her : 

“ Yes, ten or twenty years, because you are my 
happiness, my desire, my love ! ” 


Part VII 

Elaine was still sleeping when I arose, and I 
did not choose to wait until she woke up. Her com- 
plexion was almost transparent, her lips were half- 
open, as if she were dreaming, and she seemed so 


10 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


overcome with sleep that I felt much emotion when 
I looked at her. 

I drank four glasses of champagne, one after the 
other, as quickly as I could, but it did not quench 
my thirst. I was feverish, and could have given 
anything in the world for something to interest me 
suddenly and have absorbed me and lifted me out 
of that slough in which my heart and my brain 
were being engulfed, as if in a quicksand. I did 
not venture to avow to myself what was making me 
mad with grief, or to scrutinize the muddy bottom 
of my present thoughts sincerely and courageously, 
to question myself and to pull myself together. 

It would have been so odious, so infamous, to 
harbour such suspicions unjustly, to accuse that 
adorable creature who was not yet twenty, whom I 
loved, and who seemed to love me, without having 
certain proofs, that I felt that I was blushing at the 
idea that I had any doubt of her innocence. Ah! 
Why did I marry? 

I had a sufficient income to enable me to live as 
I liked, to play the gallant to beautiful women who 
pleased me, whom I chanced to meet and who 
amused me, and who sometimes gave me unex- 
pected proofs of affection, but I had never allowed 
myself to be caught altogether, and in order to keep 
my heart warm I had some romantic and senti- 
mental friendships with women in society, some of 
those delightful flirtations which have an appear- 
ance of love, which fill up the idleness of a useless 
life with a number of unexpected sensations, with 
small duties and vague, subtle pleasures! 


MAD 


II 


And was I now going to be like one of those 
ships which an unskillful turn of the helm runs 
ashore as it is leaving the harbour? What terrible 
trials were awaiting me, what sorrows and what 
struggles ? 

A humorous friend said to me one nfght in joke 
at the club, when I had just broken one of those 
banks which form an epoch in a player’s life: 

“ If I were in your place, Jacques, I should dis- 
trust such runs of luck as that, for one always has 
to pay for them sooner or later ! ” 

Sooner or later! 

I half opened the bedroom door gently. Elaine 
was in one of those heavy sleeps similar to those 
that follow intoxication. Who could tell whether, 
when she opened her eyes and called me, surprised 
at not finding me, her whole being would not be- 
come languid, and suddenly sink into a state of 
prostration? I wanted to reason with myself, and 
bring myself face to face with those cursed sug- 
gestions, as one does with a skittish horse before 
some object that frightens it, and to evoke the 
recollection of every hour, every minute, of that 
first night, and to extract the secret from her. 

Elaine’s looks and radiant smile were overflow- 
ing with happiness, and she had the air of a con- 
queror who is proud of his triumph, for she was 
now a woman, and we had at least been alone in 
this modernized country house, which had been 
redecorated and smartened up to serve as the frame 
for our affection! She hardly seemed to know 
what she was saying or doing, and ran from room 


12 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


to room in her light morning dress of mauve crape, 
without exactly knowing where to sit, and almost 
dazzled by the light of the lamps that had large 
shades to represent rose leaves over them. 

There was no embarrassment, no hesitation, no 
shamefaced looks, no recoiling from the arms that 
were stretched out to her; none of those delightful 
little pieces of awkwardness which show a virgin 
soul free from all perversion, in her manner of sit- 
ting on my knees, of putting her bare arms round 
my neck. She laughed nervously, and her supple 
form trembled when I kissed her, and she said 
things to me that were only suitable for being whis- 
pered, while a strange languor overshadowed her 
eyes and dilated her nostrils. 

And suddenly, with a mocking gesture which 
seemed to bid defiance to the repast that was laid 
on a small table, cold meat of various kinds, plates 
of fruit and of cakes, the ice pail, from which the 
neck of a bottle of champagne protruded, she said 
merrily : 

“ I am not at all hungry, dear ; let us not eat 
until later ; what do you say ? ” 

She half turned round to the large bed, which 
looked white in the shadow of the recess in which 
it stood, with its two white, untouched, almost sol- 
emn pillows. She was not smiling any more ; there 
was a bluish gleam in her eyes, like that of burning 
alcohol, and I lost my head. Elaine did not try to 
escape, and did not utter a complaint. 

Oh ! that night of torture and delight, that night 
which ought never to have ended! 


MAD 


13 


I determined that I would be as patient as a 
policeman who is trying to discover the traces of 
a crime, that I would investigate the past of this 
girl, about which I knew nothing, as I should be 
sure to discover some proof, some important rem- 
iniscence, some servant who had been her accom- 
plice. 

And yet I adored her, my pretty, my divine 
Elaine, and I would consent no matter to what if 
only she were what I dreamed her, what I wished 
her to be, if only this nightmare would go and no 
longer rise up between her and me. 

When she woke up she spoke to me in her coax- 
ing voice. Oh ! her kisses, again her kisses, always 
her kisses, in spite of everything ! 

Oh ! to have believed blindly, to have believed 
on my knees that she was not lying, that she was 
not making a mockery of my tenderness, and that 
she had never belonged, and never would belong, 
to any one but me! 


Part VIII 

I wished that I could have transformed myself 
into one of those crafty, unctuous priests to whom 
women confess their most secret faults, to whom 
they intrust their souls and frequently ask for ad- 
vice, and that Elaine would have come and knelt 
at the grating of the confessional, where I should 
press her closely with questions, and gradually ex- 
tract sincere confidences from her. 


M 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Nowadays, as soon as I am by the side of a young 
or old married woman I try to give our conversa- 
tion a knowing turn ; I forget all reserve, and I try 
to make her talk on the only subject that interests 
and holds me, to extract from her, if possible, a 
recital of her true heart feelings. Was she shy or 
bold in the presence of her husband on those first 
days of their married life? Some do not appear to 
understand me, blush, leave me as if I were some 
unpleasant, ill-mannered person and had offended 
them ; as if I had tried to force open the precious 
casket in which they keep their sweetest recollec- 
tions. 

Others understand me only too well, scent some- 
thing equivocal and ridiculous, though they do not 
exactly know what, make me go on, and finally get 
out of the difficulty by some subtle piece of imperti- 
nence and a burst of teasing laughter. 

Two or three at most, and they were those pretty 
little upstarts who talk at random and brag about 
their vice, and whom one could soon not leave a leg 
to stand upon, were one to take the trouble, have 
related their impressions to me with ironical com- 
plaisance, and I found nothing in what they told 
me that reassured me, nor could I discover any- 
thing serious, true, or moving in it. 

That supreme initiation amused them as much 
as if it had been a scene from a comedy; the small 
amount of affection that they felt for the man with 
whom their existence had been welded grew less 
and evaporated altogether — and they remembered 
nothing about it except its ridiculous and hateful 


MAD 


5 


side, and described it as a sort of pantomime in 
which they played a bad part. But these did not 
love and were not adored as Elaine was. They 
married either from interest, or that they might not 
remain old maids, that they might have more lib- 
erty and escape from troublesome guardianship. 

Foolish dolls, without either heart or head, they 
had neither that almost diseased nervosity, nor that 
requirement for affection, nor that instinct of love 
which I discovered in my wife’s nature, and which 
attracted me at the same time that it terrified me. 

Besides, who could convince me of my errors? 
Who could dissipate that darkness in which I was 
lost? What miracle could restore all my belief in 
her again? 


Part IX 

Elaine felt that I was hiding something from 
her, that I was unhappy, that, as it were, some 
threatening obstacle had risen up between her and 
me, that some insupportable suspicion was oppress- 
ing me, torturing me and keeping me from her 
arms, was poisoning and disturbing that affection 
in which I had hoped to find fresh youth, absolute 
happiness, my dream of dreams. 

She never spoke to me about it, however, but 
seemed to recoil from a definite explanation which 
might make shipwreck of her love. She sur- 
rounded me with endearing attentions, and ap- 
peared to be trying to make my life so pleasant to 


i6 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


me that nothing in the world could draw me from 
it. And she would certainly cure me, if this mad- 
ness of mine were not, alas ! like those wounds 
which are constantly reopening, and which no balm 
can heal. 

But at times I lived again, I imagined that her 
caresses had exorcised me, that I was saved, that 
doubt was mo longer gnawing at my heart, that I 
was going to adore her again as I used to. I would 
throw myself at her knees and put my lips on her 
little hands, which she abandoned to me ; I looked 
at her lovely, limpid eyes as if they had been a 
piece of a blue sky that appeared amid black storm 
clouds, and I whispered, with something like a sob 
in my throat: 

“You love me, do you not, with all your heart, 
you love me as much as I love you; tell me so 
again, my dear love; tell me that, and nothing but 
that ! ” 

And she used to reply eagerly, with a smile of 
joy on her lips: 

“ Do you not know it ? Do you not see every 
moment that I love you, that you have taken entire 
possession of me, and that I only live for you and 
by you?” 

And her kisses gave me new life, and intoxicated 
me, as when one returns from a long journey and 
had been in peril, and despairs of ever seeing some 
beloved object again, and one meets with a sort of 
frenzied embrace, and forgets everything in that 
divine feeling that one is going to die of happiness. 


Part X 


But these were only ephemeral clear spots in our 
sky, and the crises which accompanied them only 
grew more bitter and terrible. I knew that Elaine 
was growing more and more uneasy at the appar- 
ent strangeness of my character, that she suffered 
from it, and that it affected her nerves, that the 
existence to which I was condemning her in spite 
of myself, that all this immoderate love of mine, 
followed by fits of inexplicable coldness and melan- 
choly, disconcerted her, so that she was no longer 
the same, and kept away from me. She could not 
hide her grief, and was continually worrying me 
with questions of affectionate pity. She repeated 
the same things over and over again, with hateful 
persistence. She had vexed me, without knowing 
it? Was I already tired of my married life, and 
did I regret my lost liberty? Had I any private 
troubles which I had not told her of; heavy debts 
which I did not know how to pay? Was it family 
matters or some former connection with a woman 
that I had broken off suddenly, and that now 
threatened to create a scandal? Was I being wor- 
ried by anonymous letters? What was it, in a 
word? What was it? 

My denials only exasperated her, so that she 
sulked in silence, while her brain worked and her 
heart grew hard toward me ; but could I, as a mat- 
ter of fact, tell her of my suspicions which were 


l8 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

filling my life with gloom and annihilating me? 
Would it not be odious and vile to accuse her of 
such a fall, without any proofs or any clue, and 
would she ever forget such an insult? 

I almost envied those unfortunate wretches who 
had the right to be jealous, who had to fight against 
a woman’s coquettish and light behaviour, and who 
had to defend their honour that was threatened by 
some poacher on the preserves of love. They had 
a target to aim at; they knew their enemies and 
knew what they were doing, while I was wandering 
in a land of terrible mirages, was struggling in the 
midst of vague suppositions, and was causing my 
own troubles, and was enraged with her past, which 
was, I felt sure, as white and pure as any bridal 
veil. 

Ah ! It would be better to blow my brains out, 
I thought to myself, than to prolong such a situa- 
tion ! I had had enough of it. I scarcely lived, and 
I wished to know all that Elaine had done before 
we became engaged. I wanted to know whether I 
was the first or the second, and I determined to 
know it, even if I had to sacrifice years of my life 
in inquiry, and to lower myself to compromising 
words and acts, and to every species of artifice, and 
to spend everything that I possessed ! 

She might believe whatever she liked, for after 
all I should only laugh at it. We might have been 
so happy, and there were so many who envied me, 
and who would gladly have consented to take my 
place ! 


Part XI 


I no longer knew where I was going, but was 
like a train going at full speed through a dense fog, 
and which in vain disturbs the perfect silence of 
the sleeping country with its puffing and shrill 
whistles; when the driver cannot distinguish the 
changing lights of the disks nor the signals, and 
when soon some terrible crash will send the train 
off the rails, and the carriages will become a heap 
of ruins. 

I was afraid of going mad, and at times I asked 
myself whether any of my family had shown any 
signs of mental aberration and had been locked up 
in a lunatic asylum, and whether the life of constant 
fast pleasure, of turning night into day, and of fre- 
quent violent emotions, that I had led for years, 
had not at last affected my brain. If I had believed 
in anything, and in the science of the occult, which 
haunts so many restless brains, I should have im- 
agined that some enemy was bewitching me and 
laying invisible snares for me, that he was suggest- 
ing those actions which were quite unworthy of the 
frank, upright, and well-bred man that I was, and 
was trying to destroy the happiness of which she 
and I had dreamed. 

For a whole week I devoted myself to that hate- 
ful business of playing the spy, and to those in- 
quiries which were killing me. I had succeeded in 
discovering the lady’s maid who had been in 


20 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Elaine’s service before we were married, and whom 
she loved as if she had been her foster sister, who 
used to accompany her whenever she went out, 
when she went to visit the poor and when she went 
for a walk, who used to wake her every morning, 
do her hair, and dress her. She was young and 
rather pretty, and one saw that Paris had improved 
her and given her a polish, and that she knew her 
difficult business from end to end. 

I had found out, however, that her virtue was 
only apparent, especially since she had changed 
employers ; that she was fond of going to the public 
balls, and that she divided her favours between a 
man who came from her part of the country and 
who was a sergeant in a dragoon regiment, and a 
footman, and that she spent all her money on horse 
races and on dress. I felt sure that I should be 
able to make her talk and get the truth out of her, 
either by money or cunning, and so I asked her to 
meet me early one morning in a quiet square. 

She listened to me first of all in astonishment, 
without replying yes or no, as if she did not under- 
stand what I was aiming at, or with what object I 
was asking her all these questions about her for- 
mer mistress ; but when I offered her a few hundred 
francs to loosen her tongue, as I was impatient to 
get the matter over apd pretended to know that she 
had managed interviews for Elaine with her lovers, 
that they were known and followed, that she was 
in the habit of frequenting quiet bachelors’ quarters, 
from which she returned late, the sly little wench 
frowned, shrugged her shoulders, and exclaimed : 


MAD 


21 


“ What pigs some men are to have such ideas, 
and cause such an excellent person as Mademoiselle 
Elaine any unhappiness ! Look here, you disgust 
me with your banknotes and your dirty stories, and 
I don’t choose to say what you ought to wear on 
your head ! ” 

She turned her back on me and hurried off, and 
her insolence, that indignant reply which she had 
given me, rejoiced me to the depths of my heart, 
like soothing balm that lulls the pain. 

I should have liked to have called her back and 
told her that it was all a joke, that I was devotedly 
in love with my wife, that I was always on the 
watch to hear her praised, but she was already out 
of sight, and I felt that I was ridiculous and mean, 
that I had lowered myself by what I had done, and 
I swore that I would profit by such a humiliating 
lesson, and for the future show myself to Elaine as 
the trusting and- ardent husband that she deserved, 
and I thought myself cured, altogether cured. 

And yet I was again a prey to the same bad 
thoughts, to the same doubts, and persuaded that 
that girl had lied to me just as all women lie when 
they are on the defensive, that she made fun of 
me, that perhaps some one had foreseen this scene 
and had told her what to say and made sure of her 
silence, just as her complicity had been gained. 
Thus I shall always knock up against some barrier, 
and struggle in this wretched darkness and this 
mire from which I cannot extricate myself! 


Part XII 


Nobody knew anything. Neither the Superior 
of the convent where she had been brought up 
until she was sixteen, nor the servants who had 
waited on her, nor the governesses who had finished 
her education, could remember that Elaine had been 
difficult to check or to teach, or that she had had 
any other ideas than those of her age. She had 
certainly shown no precocious coquetry and dis- 
quieting instincts at school that would begin the 
inevitable eclogue of Daphnis and Chloe over again. 

However — oh! I felt it too much for it to be 
nothing but a chimera and a mirage — it was no 
pure girl who threw her ams around my neck so 
lovingly, and who returned my first kisses so de- 
liciously, who was attracted by my society, who 
gave no signs of surprise and uttered no complaint, 
who appeared to forget everything when in my 
society. No, no, a thousand times no, that could 
not have been a pure woman. 

I ought to have cast off that intoxication which 
was bewitching me, and to have rushed out of the 
room where such a lie was being consummated; I 
ought to have profited by her moments of amiable 4 
weakness, while she was incapable of collecting her 
thoughts, when she would with tears have confessed 
an old fault, for which the unhappy girl had not, 
perhaps, been altogether responsible. Perhaps by 
my entreaties, or even perhaps by violence, in ter- 


MAD 


23 


ror at my furious looks, when my features would 
have been distorted by rage and my hands clinched 
in spite of myself in a gesture of menace and of 
murder, I might have forced her to open her heart, 
to show me its defilement, and to tell me this sad 
love episode. 

How do I know whether her disconsolateness 
might not have moved me to pity, whether I should 
not have wept with her at the heavy cross that we 
both of us had to bear, whether I should not have 
forgiven her and opened my arms wide, so that she 
might have thrown herself into them as into a 
peaceful refuge? 

Who could tell me or come to my aid? Who 
could give me the proofs, the real, undeniable 
proofs, either that I was an infamous wretch to sus- 
pect Elaine, whom I ought to have worshiped with 
my eyes shut, or that she was guilty, that she had 
lied, and that I had the right to cast her out of my 
life and to treat her like a worthless woman? 


Part XIII 

If I had married when I was quite young, before 
I had wallowed in the mire of Paris, from which 
one can never afterward free one’s self, for heart 
and body both retain indelible marks of it, if experi- 
ences had not disgusted me with belief in any 
woman, if I had not been weaned from supreme 
illusions and surfeited with everything to the mar- 
row, should I have these abominable ideas? 


24 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


I waited almost until I was beginning to decline 
in life before I took the right path and sought 
refuge in port, before going to what is pure and 
virtuous, and before listening to the continual ad- 
vice of those who love me. I passed too suddenly 
from those lies, from those ephemeral enjoyments, 
from that satiety which depraves us, from vice in 
which one tries to acquire renewed strength and 
vigour and to discover some new and unknown sen- 
sation, to the pure sentimentalities of an engage- 
ment, to the unspeakable delights of a life that was 
common to two, to that first communion which 
ought to constitute married life. 

If, instead of becoming involved in an engage- 
ment and forming a resolution so quickly — I had 
been afraid that somebody else would be before- 
hand with me and rob me of Elaine’s heart, or that 
I should relapse into my former habits ; if instead 
of lacking moral strength and character enough, in 
case I might have had to wait ; if I had backed out 
without entering into any engagement and without 
having bound my life to that of the adorable girl 
whom chance had thrown in my way, it would 
surely have been far better. If I had waited, pre- 
pared myself, questioned myself, and accustomed 
myself to that metamorphosis; if I had purified 
myself and forgotten the past, as in those retreats 
which precede the solemn ceremony when pious 
souls pronounce their indissoluble vows? 

The reaction had been too sudden and violent 
for such a convalescent as I was. I worked myself 
up, and pictured to myself something so white, so 


MAD 


25 


virginal, so paradisaical, such complete ignorance, 
such unconquerable modesty, and such delicious 
awkwardness, that Elaine’s gayety, her uncon- 
straint, her fearlessness, and her kisses bewildered 
me, roused my suspicions, and filled me with an- 
guish. 

And yet I know how all, or nearly all, girls are 
educated in these days, and that the ignorant, sim- 
ple ones only exist in the drama, and I know also 
that they hear and learn too many things, both at 
home and in society, not to have the intuition of 
the results of love. 

Elaine loves me with all her heart, for she has 
told me so time after time, and she repeats it to 
me more ardently than ever when I take her into 
my arms and appear happy. She must have seen 
that her beauty had, in a manner, converted me; 
that in order to possess her I had renounced many 
seductions and a long life of enjoyment; and per- 
haps she would no longer please me if she were 
too much of the little girl, and would appear ridicu- 
lous to me if she showed her fears by any entreaty, 
or gesture, or any sigh. 

As the people in the South say, she would have 
acted the brave woman, and boasted, so that no 
complaint might betray her, and have imparted the 
wild tenderness of a jealous heart to her kisses, and 
have attempted a struggle, which would certainly 
have been useless, against those recollections of 
mine, with which she thought I must be filled, in 
spite of myself. 

I accused myself so that I might no longer accuse 


26 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


her. I studied my malady; I knew quite well I 
was wrong, and I wished to be wrong. I meas- 
ured the stupidity and the disgrace of such suspi- 
cions, and, nevertheless, in spite of everything, they 
assailed me again, watched me traitorously, and I 
was carried away and devoured by them. 

Ah ! Was there in the whole world, even among 
the most wretched beggars that were dying of star- 
vation, whom nature squeezes in a vise, as it were, 
or among the victims of love, anybody who could 
say that he was more wretched than I? 


Part XIV 

This morning Count de Saulnac, who was lunch- 
ing here, told us a terrible story of a physician who 
had drugged or hypnotized a farmer’s young 
daughter, who had been sent to him as a patient, 
and how he had brutally assaulted her. 

Before he had finished I noticed an evil look on 
Elaine^s face such as I had never before seen, and 
with vibrating nostrils she exclaimed in a hard 
voice : 

“ To think that such a monster was not sent to 
the guillotine ! ” But unless Elaine was a monster 
of wickedness, unless she had no heart and knew 
how to lie and to deceive as well as a girl whose 
only pleasure consists in making all those who are 
captivated by her beauty play the laughable part of 
dupes, unless that mask of youth concealed a most 


MAD 


27 


polluted soul, if there had been an unhappy epi- 
sode in her life, would not something visible, some- 
thing disgusting, attacks of low spirits and of gloom 
and disgust with everything, have remained, which 
would have shown the progress of some mysterious 
malady, the gradual weakening of the brain, and 
the enlargement of an incurable wound? 

She would have cried occasionally, would have 
been lost in thought and become confused when 
spoken to ; she would scarcely have taken any inter- 
est in anything that happened, either at home or 
elsewhere. Kisses would have become a torture to 
her, and would have only excited a fever of revolt 
in her inanimate being. 

I fancy that I can see such a victim of inexorable 
Destiny, as if she were a consumptive woman whose 
days are numbered, and who knows it. She smiles 
feebly when any one tries to get her out of her 
torpor, to amuse her, and to instill a little hope into 
her soul. She does not speak, but remains sitting 
silently at a window for whole days together, and 
one might think that her large, dreamy eyes are 
looking at strange sights in the depths of the sky, 
and see a long, attractive road there. But Elaine, 
on the contrary, thought of nothing but of amusing 
herself, of enjoying life and of laughing, and added 
all the tricks of a girl who has just left school to 
her seductive grace of a young woman. She car- 
ried men away with her; she was most seductive, 
and loving seemed to be her creation. She thought 
of nothing but of little coquettish acts that made 
her more adorable, and of tender innuendoes that 


28 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


triumph over everything, that bring men to their 
knees and tempt them. 

It was thus that I formerly dreamed of the wo- 
man who was to be my wife, and this was the man- 
ner in which I looked on life in common; and now 
this perpetual joy irritates me like a challenge, like 
some piece of insolent boasting, and those lips that 
seek mine and which offer themselves so alluringly 
and coaxingly to me make me sad and torture me, 
as if they breathed nothing but a lie. 

Ah! If she had been the lover of another man 
before marriage, if she had belonged to some one 
else besides me, it could only have been from love, 
without altogether knowing what she wanted or 
what she was doing! And now, because she had 
acquired a name by marriage, because she had acci- 
dentally extricated herself from that false step and 
thought she had won the game, now she fancied 
that I had not perceived anything, that I adored 
her and possessed her absolutely. 

How wretched I was ! Should I never be able to 
escape from that night which was growing darker 
and darker, which was imprisoning me, driving me 
mad, and raising an increasing and impenetrable 
barrier between Elaine and me? Would not she, in 
the end, be the stronger, she whom I loved so 
dearly, would not she envelop me in so much love 
that at last I should again find the happiness that I 
had lost, as if it were a calm, sunlit haven, and thus 
forget this horrible nightmare when I fell on my 
knees before her beauty, with a contrite heart and 
pricked by remorse, and happy to give myself to 


MAD 


2 9 


her forever, altogether and more passionately than 
at the divine period of our betrothal? 


Part XV 

Even the sight of our bedroom became painful 
to me. I was afraid of it; I was uncomfortable 
there, and felt a kind of repulsion in going there. 
It seemed to me as if Elaine were repeating a part 
that some one else had taught her, and I almost 
hoped that in a moment of forgetfulness she would 
allow her secret to escape her, and pronounce some 
name that was not mine, and I used to keep awake, 
with my ears on the alert, in the hope that she 
might betray herself in her sleep and murmur some 
revealing word, as she recalled the past, and my 
temples throbbed and my whole body trembled with 
excitement. 

But when this was over and I saw her sleeping 
peacefully as a little girl who was tired with play- 
ing, with parted lips and dishevelled hair, and 
measured the full extent of the stupidity of my 
hatred and the sacrilegious madness of my jealousy, 
my heart softened and I fell into such a state of 
profound and absolute distress that I thought I 
should have died of it, and large drops of cold 
perspiration ran down my cheeks and tears fell from 
my eyes, and I got up, so that my sobs might not 
disturb her rest and wake her. 

As this could not continue, however, I told her 
one day that I felt so exhausted and ill that I 


30 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


should prefer to sleep in my own room. She ap- 
peared to believe me, and merely said : 

“ As you please, my dear ! ” but her blue eyes 
suddenly assumed such an anxious, such a grieved 
look that I turned my head aside, so as not to see 
them. 


Part XVI 

I was again in the old house, and without her , 
in the old house where Elaine used to spend all 
her holidays, in the room whose shutters had not 
been opened since our departure seven months ago. 

Why did I go there, where the calm of the coun- 
try, the silence of the solitude, and my rcollections 
irritated me and recalled my trouble, where I suf- 
fered even more than I did in Paris, and where I 
thought of Elaine every moment, I seemed to see 
her and to hear her, in a species of hallucination ? 

What did her letters that I had taken out of her 
writing table, which she had used as a girl; what 
did her ball cards, which were stuck round her 
looking-glass, in which she used to admire herself 
formerly ; what did her dresses, her dressing-gowns, 
and the dusty furniture whose repose my trembling 
hands violated tell me? Nothing, and always 
nothing ! 

At table I used to speak with the worthy couple 
who had never left the mansion and who appeared 
to look upon themselves as its second masters, with 
the apparent good nature of a man who was in love 


MAD 


31 


with his wife and who wished only to speak about 
her, who took an interest in the smallest detail of 
her childhood and youth, with all the jovial famili- 
arity which encourages peasants to talk, and when 
a few glasses of white wine had loosened their 
tongues they would talk about her whom they loved 
as if she had been their child, and at other times I 
used to question the farmers, when they came to 
settle their accounts. 

Had Elaine the bridle on her neck as so many 
girls had? Did she like the country? Were the 
peasants fond of her, and did she show any pref- 
erence for one or the other? Were many people 
invited for the shooting, and did she visit much 
with the other ladies in the neighbourhood? 

And they drank with their elbows resting on the 
table in front of me, uttered her praises in a' voice 
as monotonous as a spinning wheel, lost them- 
selves in endless, senseless chatter which made me 
yawn in spite of myself, and told me her girlish 
tricks, which certainly did not disclose what was 
haunting me, the traces of that first love, that per- 
ilous flirtation, that foolish escapade which Elaine 
might have experienced. 

Old and young men and women spoke of her 
with something like devotion, and all said how kind 
and charitable she was, and as merry as a bird on 
a bright day; they said she pitied their wretched- 
ness and their troubles, and was still the young girl 
in spite of her long dresses, and fearing nothing, 
while even the animals loved her. 

She was almost always alone, and was never 


32 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


troubled with any companions; she seemed to shun 
the house, hide herself in the park when the bell 
announced some unexpected visit, and when one 
of her aunts, Madame de Pleissac, said to her one 
day : 

u Do you think that you will ever find a hus- 
band with your stand-offish manners ? ” she replied, 
with a burst of laughter : 

“Oh! Very well, then, auntie, I shall do with- 
out one ! ” 

She had never given a handle to spiteful chatter 
or to slander, and had not flirted with the best- 
looking young man in the neighbourhood, any more 
than she had with the officers who stayed at the 
chateau during the manoeuvres, or the neighbours 
who came to see her parents. And some of them 
even, old men whom years of work had bent like 
vine stocks and had tanned like the leather bottles 
which are used by caravans in the East, used to 
say, with tears in their dim eyes : 

“ Ah ! When you married our young lady we 
all said that there would not be a happier man in 
the whole world than you ! ” 

Ought I to have believed them? Were they not 
simple, frank souls, ignorant of wiles and of lies, 
who had no interest in deceiving me, who had lived 
near Elaine while she was growing up and becom- 
ing a woman, and who had been familiar with her ? 

Could I be the only one who doubted Elaine, the 
only one who accused her and suspected her, I who 
loved her so madly, I whose only hope, only desire, 
only happiness she was? May Heaven guide me 


MAD 


33 


on this bad road on which I have lost my way, 
where I am calling for help and where my misery 
is increasing every day, and grant me the infinite 
pleasure of being able to enjoy her caresses with 
out any ill feeling, and to be able to love her as 
she loves me. And if I must expiate my old faults, 
and this infamous doubt which I am ashamed of 
not being immediately able to cast from me, if I 
must pay for my unmerited happiness with usury, 
I hope that I may be given to death as a prey, only 
provided that I might belong to her, idolize her, 
believe in her kisses, believe in her beauty and in 
her love, for one hour, for even a few moments ! 


Part XVII 

To-day I suddenly remembered a strange evening 
which I spent when I was a bachelor at Madame 
d’Ecoussens’, where all of us, some with secret and 
insurmountable agony and others with absolute in- 
difference, went into one of the small rooms where 
a female professor of palmistry, who was then in 
vogue and whose name I have forgotten, had in- 
stalled herself. 

When it came to my turn to sit opposite to her, 
as if I had been going to make my confession, she 
took my hands into her long, slender fingers, felt 
them, squeezed them, and triturated them, as if 
they had been a lump of wax which she was about 
to model into shape. 

Severely dressed in black, with a pensive face, 


34 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


thin lips, and almost copper-coloured eyes, and 
neither young nor old, this woman had something 
commanding, imperious, disturbing about her, and 
I must confess that my heart beat more violently 
than usual while she looked at the lines in my left 
hand through a strong magnifying glass, where the 
mysterious characters of some Satanic conjuring 
look appear and form a capital M. 

She was very interesting, occasionally discovered 
fragments of my past and gave mysterious hints, 
as if her looks were following the strange roads of 
Destiny in those unequal, confused curves. She 
told me in brief words that I should have and had 
had some opportunities, that I was wasting my 
physical, more than my moral, strength in all kinds 
of love affairs that did not last long, and that the 
day when I really loved, or when, to use her expres- 
sion, I was fairly caught, would be to me the prel- 
ude of intense sufferings, a real way of the Cross 
and of an illness of which I should never be cured. 
Then, as she examined my line of life, that which 
surrounds the thick part of the thumb, the lady 
in black suddenly grew gloomy, frowned, and ap- 
peared to hesitate to go on to the end and continue 
my Hbroscope, and said very quickly: 

“ Your line of life is magnificent, Monsieur; you 
will live to be sixty at least, but take care not to 
spend it too freely or to use it immoderately; be- 
ware of strong emotions and of any passional crisis, 
for I remark a gap there in the full vigour of your 
age, and that gap, that incurable malady which I 
mentioned to you, in the line of your heart.” 


MAD 


35 


I mastered myself, in order not to smile, and took 
my leave of her, but everything that she foretold 
has been realized, and I dare not look at that sin- 
ister gap which she saw in my line of life — for that 
gap can only mean madness ! 

Madness, my poor, dear, adored Elaine ! 


Part XVIII 

I became as bad and spiteful as if the spirit of 
hatred had possession of me, and envied those 
whose life, was too happy and who had no cares to 
trouble them. I could not conceal my pleasure 
when one of those domestic dramas occurred in 
which hearts bleed and are broken, in which odious 
treachery and bitter sufferings are brought to light. 

I attended divorce proceedings, with their mis- 
erable episodes, with the wranglings of the lawyers 
and all the unhappiness that they revealed, and 
which exposed the vanity of dreams, the tricks of 
women, the lowness of some minds, the foul animal 
that slumbers in most hearts. They attracted me 
like a delightful play, a piece which rivets one from 
the first to the last act. I listened greedily to pas- 
sionate letters, those mad prayers whose secrets 
some lawyer violates and which he reads aloud in 
a mocking tone, and which he gives pellmell to the 
bench and to the public, who have come to be 
amused or to be excited, and to stare at the vic- 
tims of love. 

I followed those proceedings where unfaithful- 


3 ^ 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ness was unfolded chapter by chapter in its brutal 
reality of things that had actually occurred, and 
for the first time I forgot my own unhappiness in 
them. Sometimes the husband and wife were there, 
as if they wished to defy each other, to meet in 
some last encounter; and pale and feverish they 
watched each other, devoured each other with their 
eyes, hiding their grief and their misery. 

It seemed to me as if I were looking at a heap 
of ruins, or breathing in the odour of an ambulance 
in which dying men were groaning, and that those 
unhappy people were assuaging my trouble some- 
what and taking their share of it. 

I used to read the advertisements in the personal 
columns in the newspapers, where the same exalted 
phrases used to recur, where I read the same de- 
spairing adieus, earnest requests for a meeting, 
echoes of past affection, and vain vows ; and all this 
relieved me, vaguely appeased me, and made me 
think less about myself — that hateful, incurable l 
which I longed to destroy ! 


Part XIX 

As the heat was very oppressive and there was 
not a breath of wind, after dinner Elaine wanted to 
go for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne, and we 
drove in the victoria toward the bridge at Suresnes. 

It was getting late, and the dark drives looked 
like deserted labyrinths and cool retreats where one 
would have liked to have stopped late, where the 


MAD 


37 


very rustle of the leaves seems to whisper tempta- 
tions, and there was seduction in the softness of 
the air and in the infinite music of the silence. 

Occasionally lights were to be seen among the 
trees, and the crescent of the new moon shone like 
a half-opened gold circle in the serene sky, and the 
green sward, the copses and the small lakes, which 
gave an uncertain reflection of the surounding ob- 
jects, came into sight suddenly, out of the shade, 
and the intoxicating smell of the hay and of the 
flower beds rose from the earth as if from a sachet. 

We did not speak, but the jolts of the carriage 
occasionally brought us quite close together, and as 
if I were being attracted by some irresistible force, 
I turned to Elaine, and saw that her eyes were full 
of tears and that she was very pale, and my whole 
body trembled when I looked at her. Suddenly, as 
if she could not bear this state of affairs any longer, 
she threw her arms round my neck, and with her 
lips almost touching mine she said: 

“ Why do you not love me any longer ? Why 
do you make me so unhappy? What have I done 
to you, Jacques?” 

She was at my mercy, she was undergoing the 
influence of the charm of one of those moonlight 
nights which unstring women’s nerves, make them 
languid, and leave them without a will and without 
any strength, and I thought that she was going to 
tell me everything and to confess everything to me, 
and I had to master myself not to kiss her on her 
sweet, coaxing lips, but I only replied coldly: 

“ Do you not know, Elaine ? Did you not think 


38 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


that sooner or later I should discover everything 
that you have been trying to hide from me ? ” 

She sat up in terror, and repeated as if she were 
in a profound stupor: 

“ What have I been trying to hide from you ? ” 

I had said too much, and was bound to go on to 
the end and to finish, even though I repented of it 
ever afterward, and amid the noise of the carriage 
I said in a hoarse voice: 

“ Is it not your fault if I have become estranged 
from you? Shall I be the only one to be unhappy, 
I who loved you so dearly, who believed in you, 
and whom you have deceived ? ” 

Elaine closed my mouth with her fingers, and 
breathing hard, with dilated eyes and with such a 
pale face that I thought she was going to faint, she 
said hoarsely: 

“ Be quiet, be quiet, you are frightening me — 
frightening me as if you were a madman/’ 

Those words froze me, and I shivered as if some 
phantoms were appearing among the trees and 
showing me the place that had been marked out for 
me by Destiny, and I felt inclined to jump from 
the carriage and to run to the river, which was call- 
ing to me yonder in a maternal voice and inviting 
me to an eternal sleep, eternal repose, but Elaine 
called out to the coachman : 

“ We will go home, Firmin ; drive as fast as you 
can ! ” 

We did not exchange another word, and during 
the whole drive Elaine sobbed convulsively, though 
she tried to hide the sound with her pocket-hand- 


MAD 


39 


kerchief, and I understood that it was all finished 
and that I had killed her love. 


Part XX 

Yes, all was finished, and stupidly finished, with- 
out the decisive explanation, in which I should find 
strength to escape from a hateful yoke, and to repu- 
diate the woman who had allured me with false 
caresses, and who no longer ought to bear my name. 

It was either that, or else — who knows? — the 
happiness, the peace, the love which was not trou- 
bled by any evil afterthoughts, that absolute love 
that I dreamed of between Elaine and myself when 
I asked for her hand, and which I was still con- 
tinually dreaming of with the despair of a con- 
demned soul far from Paradise, and from which I 
was suffering, and which would kill me. 

She prevented me from speaking ; with her trem- 
bling hand she checked that flow of frenzied words 
which were about to come from my pained heart, 
those terrible accusations which an imperious, re- 
sistless force incited me to utter, and those terrified 
words which escaped from her pale lips froze me 
again, and penetrated to my marrow as if they had 
been some piercing wind. 

In spite of it all, I was in full possession of my 
reason, I was not in a passion, and I could not 
have looked like a fool. 

What could she have seen unusual in my eyes 
that frightened her? What inflections were there 


40 


guy DE MAUPASSANT 


in my voice for such an idea suddenly to arise in 
her brain? Suppose she had not made a mistake, 
suppose I no longer knew what I was saying nor 
what I was doing, and really had that terrible mal- 
ady that she had mentioned, and which I cannot 
repeat ! 

It seems to me now as if I could see myself in a 
mirror of anguish, altogether changed, as if my 
head were a complete void at times and became 
something sonorous, and then was struck violent, 
prolonged blows from a heavy clapper, as if it had 
been a bell, filling it with tumultuous, deafening 
vibrations from a kind of loud tocsin and from mo- 
notonous peals, that were succeeded by the silence 
of the grave. 

And the voice of recollection, a voice which tells 
me Elaine’s mysterious history, which speaks to 
me only of her, which recalls that initial night, that 
strange night of happiness and of grief, when I 
doubted her fidelity, when I doubted her heart as 
well as I did herself, passed slowly through this 
silence all at once, like the voice of distant music. 

Alas! Suppose she had not made a mistake! 


Part XXI 

I must be an object of hatred to her, and I left 
home without writing her a line, without trying to 
see her, without wishing her good-by. She may 
pity me or she may hate me, but she certainly does 
not love me any longer, and I have myself buried 


MAD 


41 


that love, for which I would formerly have given 
my whole life. As she is young and pretty, how- 
ever, Elaine will soon console herself for these pass- 
ing troubles with some soul that is the shadow of 
her own, and will replace me, if she has not done 
that already, and will seek happiness in new en- 
vironments. 

What are she and her friends plotting? What 
will they try to do to prevent me from interfering 
with them? What snares will they set for me so 
that I may go and end my miserable life in some 
dungeon from which there is no release? 

But that is impossible; it can never be. Elaine 
belongs to me altogether and forever; she is my 
property, my chattel, my happiness. I adore her, 
I want her all to myself, even though she he guilty, 
and I will never leave her again for a moment. I 
will still cling to her petticoats, I will roll at her 
feet and ask her pardon, for I thirst for her kisses 
and her love. 

To-night, in a few hours, I shall be with her, I 
shall go into our room, and I will cover the cheeks 
of my fair-haired darling with such kisses that she 
will no longer think me mad, and if she cries out, if 
she defends herself and spurns me, I shall kill her; 
I have made up my mind to that. 

I know that I shall strike her with the Arab 
knife that is on one of the console tables in our 
room among other knick-knacks. I see the spot 
where I shall plunge in the sharp blade, into the 
nape of her neck, which is covered with little, soft, 
pale golden curls, that are the same colour as the 


42 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


hair of her head. This knife attracted me so at one 
time, during the chaste period of our engagement, 
that I used to wish to bite it, as if it had been some 
fruit. I shall do it some day in the country, when 
she is bathed in a ray of sunlight, which makes her 
look dazzling in her pink muslin dress, some day 
on a towing path, when the nightingales are singing 
and the dragonflies, with their reflections of blue 
and silver, are flying about. 

There, there I shall skillfully plunge it in up to 
the hilt, like those who know how to kill. 


Part XXII 

And after I had killed her, what then? 

As the judges would not be able to explain such 
an extraordinary crime to themselves, they would, 
of course, say that I was mad; medical men would 
examine me and would immediately agree that I 
ought at once to be kept under supervision, taken 
care of, and placed in a lunatic asylum. 

And for years, perhaps, because I was strong, 
and because such a vigorous animal would survive 
the calamity intact, although my intellect might give 
way, I should remain a prey to these chimeras, 
carry that fixed idea of her lies, her impurity, and 
her shame about with me, that would be my one 
recollection, and I should suffer unceasingly. 

I am writing all this perfectly coolly and in full 
possession of my reason ; I have perfect prescience 
of what my resolve entails, and of this blind rush 


MAD 


43 


toward death. I feel that my very minutes are 
numbered, and that I no longer have anything in 
my skull, in which some fire, though I do not quite 
know what it is, is burning, except a few particles 
of what used to be my brain. 

Just as a short time ago I should certainly have 
murdered Elaine if she had been with me when 
invisible hands seemed to be pushing me toward 
her, inaudible voices ordered me to commit that 
murder, it is surely most probable that I shall have 
another crisis, and will there be any awakening 
from that? 

Ah! It will be a thousand times better, since 
Destiny has left me a half-open door, to escape 
from life before it is too late, before the free, sane, 
strong man that I am at present becomes the most 
pitiable, the most destructive, the most dangerous 
of human wrecks! 

May all these notes of my misery fall into 
Elaine’s hands some day, may she read them to the 
end, pity, and absolve me, and for a long time 
mourn for me! 


( Here ends Jacques’s Journal.) 


A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL 


L EDANTEC and I were twenty-five, and we 
had come to London for the first time in our 
lives. It was a cold, foggy Saturday evening 
in December, and I think that is more than enough 
to explain why my friend and I were most abom- 
inably drunk, though, to tell the truth, we did not 
feel any discomfort from it. On the contrary, we 
were floating in an atmosphere of perfect bliss. 
We did not talk, certainly, for we were incapable 
of doing so, but then we had no inclination for 
conversation. What would be the good of it? We 
could so easily read all our thoughts in each other’s 
eyes ! And our thoughts consisted in the sweet and 
unique knowledge that we were thinking about 
nothing whatever. 

It was not, however, in order to arrive at that 
state of delicious intellectual inanity that we had 
gone to mysterious Whitechapel. We had gone 
into the first public house we saw, with the firm 
intention of studying manners and customs — not to 
mention morals — as spectators, artists, and philoso- 
phers; but in the second public house we entered 
we ourselves became like the objects of our investi- 
gations, that is to say, sponges soaked in alcohol. 
Between one public house and the other the outer 


A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL 


45 


air seemed to squeeze those sponges, which then got 
just as dry as before, and thus we rolled from pub- 
lic house to public house, until at last the sponges 
could not hold any more. 

Consequently, we had for some time bidden fare- 
well to our study of morals, and our outlook was 
more limited to two impressions : zigzagging 
through the darkness outside, and the gleam of light 
inside the public houses. As to the imbibing of 
brandies, whiskies, and gins, that was done mechan- 
ically, and our stomachs scarcely noticed it. 

But what strange beings we had elbowed against 
during our long halts ! What a number of faces to 
be remembered, what clothes, what attitudes, what 
talk, and what rags! 

At first we tried to note them exactly in our 
memory, but there were so many of them, and our 
brain got muddled so quickly, that at present we 
had no very clear recollection of anything or any- 
body. Even objects that were immediately before 
us appeared to us in a vague, dusky phantasma- 
goria and became confounded with precious objects 
in an inextricable manner. The world became to 
us a sort of kaleidoscope, seen in a dream through 
the penumbra of an aquarium. 

Suddenly we were aroused from this state of 
somnolence, awakened as if by a blow on the chest, 
and imperiously forced to fix our attention on what 
we saw, for amid this whirl of strange sights, one 
stranger than all attracted our eyes and seemed to 
say to us : “ Look at me.” 

It was at the open door of a public house. A 


46 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ray of light streamed into the street through the 
half-open door, and that brutal ray fell right on the 
spectre that had just risen up there, dumb and mo- 
tionless. 

For it was indeed a spectre, pitiful and terrible, 
and, above all, most real as it stood out boldly 
against the dark background of the street, which 
seemed still darker behind it! 

Young, yes; the woman was certainly young; 
there could be no doubt about that, when one looked 
at her smooth skin, her smiling mouth which 
showed her white teeth, and her firm bust, which 
could be plainly noted under her thin dress. 

But then how explain her perfectly white hair, 
not gray or growing gray, but absolutely white, as 
white as any octogenarian’s? 

And then her eyes, her eyes beneath her smooth 
brow, were surely the eyes of an old woman ? Cer- 
tainly they were, and of a woman one could not tell 
how old, for it must have taken years of trouble 
and sorrow, of tears and of sleepless nights, and a 
whole long existence, thus to dull, to wear out, and 
to roughen those glassy orbs. 

Glassy ? Not exactly that. For granulated glass 
still retains a dull and milky brightness, a recollec- 
tion, as it were, of its former transparency. But 
her eyes seemed rather to have been made of metal 
which had turned rusty, and really if pewter could 
rust I should have compared them to pewter cov- 
ered with rust. They had the dead colour of pew- 
ter, and at the same time they emitted a glance 
which was the colour of reddish water. 


A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL 


47 


But it was not until some time later that I tried 
to define them thus approximately by retrospective 
analysis. At that moment, being altogether inca- 
pable of such an effort, I could only establish in 
my own mind the idea of extreme decrepitude and 
horrible old age which they produced in my imagi- 
nation. 

Have I said that they were set in very puffy eye- 
lids, which had no lashes whatever, and on her 
forehead without wrinkles there was not a vestige 
of eyebrow? When I tell you this, and considering 
their dull look beneath the hair of an octogenarian, 
it is not surprising that Ledantec and I said in a 
low voice at the sight of this woman, who was evi- 
dently young: 

“ Oh ! poor, poor old woman ! ” 

Her great age was further accentuated by the 
terrible poverty that was revealed by her dress. 
If she had been better dressed, her youthful looks 
would, perhaps, have struck us more, but her thin 
shawl, which was all that she had over her chemise, 
her single petticoat, which was full of holes and 
almost in rags, and which did not nearly reach to 
her bare feet, her straw hat with ragged feathers 
and with ribbons of no particular colour through 
age, it all seemed so ancient, so prodigiously an- 
tique ! 

From what remote, superannuated, abolished 
period did they all spring? One did not venture 
to guess, and by a perfectly natural association of 
ideas, one seemed to infer that the unfortunate 
creature herself was as old as her clothes were. 


48 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Now, by one I mean Ledantec and myself; that is 
to say, two men who were abominably drunk, and 
who were arguing with the special logic of in- 
toxication. 

It was also under the softening influence of al- 
cohol that we looked at the vague smile on those 
lips, revealing the teeth of a child, without stopping 
to reflect on the beauty of those youthful teeth, and 
seeing nothing except her fixed and almost idiotic 
smile, which no longer contrasted with the dull 
expression of her looks, but, on the contrary, ac- 
centuated it. For, in spite of her teeth, it was the 
smile of an old woman in our imagination, and as 
for me, I was really pleased at the thought of 
being so acute when I inferred that this grand- 
mother with such pale lips had a set of teeth of 
a young girl, and still, thanks to the softening in- 
fluence of alcohol, I was not angry with her for 
this artifice. I even thought it particularly praise- 
worthy, since, after all, the poor creature thus car- 
ried out her calling conscientiously, which was to 
seduce us. For there was no possible doubt about 
the matter, that this grandmother was nothing 
more nor less than a prostitute. 

And then, drunk! Horribly drunk, much more 
drunk than Ledantec and I were, for we really 
could manage to say : “ Oh ! Pity the poor, poor 
old woman ! ” while she was incapable of articu- 
lating a single syllable, of making a gesture, or 
even of imparting a gleam of promise, a furtive 
flash of allurement to her eyes. With her hands 
crossed on her stomach, and leaning against the 


A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL 


49 


front of the public house, with her whole body as 
stiff as if she had been in a state of catalepsy, she 
had nothing alluring about her, except her sad 
smile, and that inspired us with all the more pity 
because she was even more drunk than we were; 
and so, by an identical, spontaneous movement, we 
each of us seized her by an arm, to take her into 
the public house with us. 

To our great astonishment, she resisted, sprang 
back, and so was in the shadow again, out of the 
ray of light which came through the door, while 
at the same time she began to walk through the 
darkness and to drag us with her, for she was 
clinging to our arms. We followed her without 
speaking and without the least uneasiness on that 
score. Only, when she suddenly burst into violent 
sobs as she walked, Ledantec and I began to sob in 
unison. 

The cold and the fog had suddenly congested 
our brains again, and we had again lost all precise 
consciousness of our acts, of our thoughts, and of 
our sensations. Our sobs had nothing of grief in 
them, but we were floating in an atmosphere of 
perfect bliss, and I can remember that at that mo- 
ment it was no longer the exterior world which 
seemed to me as if I were looking at it through the 
penumbra of an aquarium; it was I myself, an I 
composed of three, which was changing into some- 
thing that was floating adrift in something, though 
what it was I did not know, composed of palpable 
fog and intangible water, and it was exquisitely 
delightful. 


50 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


From that moment I remember nothing more 
until what follows, which had the effect of a clap 
of thunder on me, and made me rise up from the 
bottom of the depth to which I had descended. 

Ledantec was standing in front of me, his face 
convulsed with horror, his hair standing on end, 
and his eyes staring out of his head, as he shouted 
to me : 

“ Let us escape ! Let us escape ! ” Whereupon 
I opened my eyes wide, and found myself lying on 
the floor in a room into which the daylight was 
shining. I saw some rags hanging against the wall, 
two chairs, a broken jug lying on the floor by my 
side, and in a corner a wretched bed, on which a 
woman was lying. She was doubtless dead, for her 
head was hanging over the side, and her long, white 
hair reached almost to my feet. 

With a bound I was on my feet, like Ledantec. 

“ What ! ” I said to him, while my teeth chat- 
tered: “Did you kill her?” 

“ No, no,” he replied. “ But that makes no dif- 
ference ; let us be off.” 

I felt completely sober by this time, but I did 
think that he was still suffering somewhat from 
the effects of last night’s drunk; otherwise, why 
should he wish to escape? Some remains of pity 
for the unfortunate woman forced me to say : 

“ What is the matter with her? If she is ill, we 
must look after her.” 

And I went to the wretched bed, in order to put 
her head back on the pillow, but I discovered that 
she was neither dead nor ill, but only sound asleep, 


A NIGHT IN WHITECHAPEL 


51 


and I also noticed that she was quite young. She 
still wore that idiotic smile, but her teeth were her 
own and those of a girl. Her smooth skin and her 
firm bust showed that she was not more than six- 
teen, perhaps not so much. 

“ There! You see it, you can see it!” Ledantec 
said. “ Let us be off.” 

He tried to drag me out, and he was still drunk ; 
I could see it by his feverish movements, his trem- 
bling hands, and his nervous looks. Then he im- 
plored me, and said : 

“ I slept beside the old woman ; but she is not 
old. Look at her; look at her; yes, she is old, 
after all ! ” 

And he lifted up her long hair by handfuls; it 
was like handfuls of white silk, and then he added, 
evidently in a sort of delirium, which made me fear 
an attack of delirium tremens: “To think that I 
have begotten children, three, four children, who 
knows how many children, all in one night! And 
they were born immediately, and have grown up 
already! Let us be off.” 

Decidedly it was an attack of madness. Poor 
Ledantec*! What could I do for him? I took his 
arm and tried to calm him, but he thought that I 
was going to try and make him go to bed with her 
again, and he pushed me away and exclaimed with 
tears in his voice : “If you do not believe me, look 
under the bed ; the children are there ; they are 
there, I tell you. Look here, just look here.” 

He threw himself down, flat on his stomach, and 
actually pulled out one, two, three, four children, 


52 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


who had hidden under the bed. I do not exactly 
know whether they were boys or girls, but all, like 
the sleeping woman, had white hair, the hair of an 
octogenarian. 

Was I still drunk, like Ledantec, or was I mad? 
What was the meaning of this strange hallucina- 
tion? I hesitated a moment, and shook myself to 
be sure that it was I. 

No, no, I had all my wits about me, and I in re- 
ality saw that bunch of horrible little brats ; they 
were all covering their faces with their hands, and 
were crying and squalling, and then, suddenly, one 
of them jumped on the bed; all the others followed 
his example, and the woman woke up. 

And then we stood, while those five pairs of eyes, 
without eyebrows or eyelashes, eyes the dull colour 
of pewter, with irises the colour of red water, were 
steadily fixed on us. 

“ Let us be off ! Let us be off ! ” Ledantec re- 
peated, letting go of me, and this time I paid atten- 
tion to what he said, and, after throwing some small 
change on the floor, I followed him, to make him 
understand, when he should be quite sober, that he 
saw before him a poor Albino prostitute, who had 
several brothers and sisters. 


UNDER THE YOKE 


B EING of a simple and affectionate disposition, 
with quiet, regular habits and nothing to dis- 
turb the even tenour of his life, Monsieur de 
Loubancourt suffered at the loss of his wife more 
than is the case with most men. He regretted his 
lost happiness, blamed fate which separated united 
couples so brutally, and which chose a tranquil ex- 
istence whose sleepy quietude had not hitherto been 
troubled by any cares or deceptions to rob it of its 
happiness. 

Had he been younger he might perhaps have 
been tempted to start anew, to fill up the vacant 
place, and to marry again. But when a man is 
nearly sixty such ideas make people laugh, for they 
have something ridiculous and insane about them; 
and so he dragged on his dull and weary existence, 
escaped from all those familiar objects which con- 
stantly recalled the past to him, and went from 
hotel to hotel without taking an interest in anything, 
without becoming intimate with any one, even tem- 
porarily; inconsolable, silent, almost enigmatical, 
and looking funereal in his eternal black clothes. 

He was generally alone, though on rare occa- 
sions he was accompanied by his only son, who 
used to yawn by stealth, and who seemed to be 


54 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


mentally counting the hours, as if he were perform- 
ing some hateful, enforced duty. 

Two years of this crystallization passed, and one 
was as monotonous and as void of incident as the 
other. 

One evening, however, in a boarding house at 
Cannes, where he was staying on his wanderings, 
a young woman dressed in mourning was among 
the new arrivals, and sat next to him at dinner. She 
had a sad, pale face, that told of suffering, a beau- 
tiful figure, and large blue eyes with deep rings 
round them, but which, nevertheless, looked like the 
first stars which shine in the twilight. 

All remarked her, and although he usually took 
no notice of women, no matter who they were, ugly 
or pretty, he looked at her and listened to her. He 
felt less lonely by her side, though he did not know 
why. He trembled with instinctive and confused 
happiness, just as if in some distant country he 
had found some female friend or relative who at 
last would understand him, tell him some news, and 
talk to him in his dear native tongue about every- 
thing that a man leaves behind him when he exiles 
himself from home. 

What strange affinity had thrown them together 
thus? What secret forces had brought their grief 
in contact? What made him so sanguine and so 
calm, and incited him to take her suddenly into his 
confidence, and aroused his curiosity? 

She was an experienced traveller, who had no il- 
lusions, and was in search of adventure; one of 
those women who have many aliases, and who, as 


UNDER THE YOKE 


55 


they have made up their mind to swindle if luck 
is not on their side, act a continual part; an ad- 
venturess who could assume every accent; who to 
carry out her plans transformed herself into a Slav, 
into an American, or simply into a provincial ; who 
was ready to take part in any comedy in order to 
make money and not be obliged to waste her 
strength and her brains on fruitless struggles or on 
wretched expedients. Thus she immediately 
guessed the state of this melancholy sexagenarian’s 
mind and the illusions which attracted him to her, 
and scented the spoils which offered themselves to 
her cupidity without her seeking, and divined under 
what guise she ought to show herself, to make her- 
self acceptable and loved. 

She initiated him into depths of griefs unknown 
to him, by phrases cut short by sighs, by fragments 
of her story, which she finished with a despairing 
shrug of the shoulders and a sad smile, thus in- 
sensibly awakening his emotions. In a word, she 
triumphed over the last remaining doubts which 
might still have mingled with the affectionate pity 
with which that poor, solitary heart overflowed. 

And so, for the first time since he had become a 
widower, the old man confided in another person, 
poured out his old heart into that soul which seemed 
to be so like his own, which seemed to offer him a 
refuge where he could be comforted, and where the 
wounds of his heart could be healed, and he longed 
to throw himself into those sisterly arms, to dry his 
tears, and to assuage his grief. 


56 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Monsieur de Loubancourt, who had married at 
twenty-five, as much for love as for reasons of pru- 
dence, had lived quietly and peacefully in the coun- 
try, much more than in Paris. He was ignorant of 
the wiles of female tempters, and offered to crea- 
tures like Wanda Pulska, who was made up of lies 
and cared only for pleasure, a virgin soil on which 
any seed will grow. 

She attached herself to him, became his shadow, 
and by degrees part of his life. She appeared to 
be a charitable woman who devoted herself to an 
unhappy man, who endeavoured to console him, and 
who, in spite of her youth, was willing to be the 
inseparable companion of the old man in his slow 
daily walks. She never appeared to tire of his 
anecdotes and reminiscences, and she played cards 
with him. She waited on him carefully when he 
was confined to his room, appeared to be perfectly 
modest, and transformed herself; and, though she 
handled him skillfully, she seemed ingenuous and 
ignorant of evil. She acted like an innocent young 
girl who had just been confirmed; but for all that 
she chose dangerous hours and special places in 
which to be sentimental and to ask questions which 
agitated and disconcerted him, and she abandoned 
her slender fingers to his feverish hands, which 
pressed and held them in a tender clasp. 

She gained such an influence over the old man 
that he one day made his will in her favour. 

Informed, perhaps, by anonymous letters, or as- 
tonished because his father kept him altogether at 
a distance from him, and gave no signs of life, 


UNDER THE YOKE 


57 


Monsieur de Loubancourt’s son joined them in 
Provence. But Wanda Pulska, who had been pre- 
paring for that attack for a long time, waited for it 
fearlessly. 

She was somewhat disturbed at that sudden visit, 
but was very charming and affable toward the new- 
comer, whom she reassured by her careless airs of 
a girl who took life as it came, and who was suf- 
fering from the consequences of a fault, but did not 
trouble her head about the future. 

He envied his father, and grudged him such a 
treasure. Although he had come to combat her 
dangerous influence, and to treat the woman who 
had monopolized his father and who governed him 
as his sovereign as an enemy, he shrank from his 
task, lost his head, and thought of nothing but of 
supplanting the old man. 

She managed him even more easily than she had 
managed Monsieur de Loubancourt, moulded him 
just as she chose, made him her tool, without even 
giving him the tips of her fingers or granting him 
the slightest favour, induced him to commit so many 
imprudences that the old man grew jealous, watched 
them, discovered the intrigue, and found wild let- 
ters in which his son was angry, begged, threatened, 
and implored by turns. 

One evening, when she knew that the old man 
had come in and was hiding in a dark cupboard in 
order to watch them, Wanda happened to be alone 
in the drawing-room, which was full of light, of 
beautiful flowers, with this young fellow of five- 
and-twenty. He threw himself at her feet and de- 


5 « 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


dared his love, and besought her to run away with 
him, and when she tried to bring him to reason and 
repulsed him, and told him in a loud and very dis- 
tinct voice how she loved Monsieur de Loubancourt, 
he seized her wrists with brutal violence, maddened 
with passion, and stammered words of love. 

“ Let me go,” she said ; “ let me go immediately. 
You are a brute to take advantage of a woman like 
that. Please let me go, or I shall call the servants 
to my assistance.” 

The next moment the old man, terrible in his 
wrath, rushed out of his hiding place with clinched 
fists, his face distorted with rage, threw himself on 
the startled son, and, pointing to the door with a 
superb gesture, he said : 

“ You are a dirty scoundrel, sir. Get out of my 
house at once, and never let me see you again ! ” 
******* 

The comedy was over. Grateful for such fidelity 
and real affection, Monsieur de Loubancourt mar- 
ried Wanda Pulska, whose name appeared on the 
civil register as Frida Krubstein — a detail of no 
importance to a man who was in love; she came 
from Saxony and had been a servant at an inn. 
Then he disinherited his son, as far as he could. 

And now that she is a respectable and respected 
widow, Madame de Loubancourt is received every- 
where by society in those places of winter resort 
where people’s bygone history is so rarely investi- 
gated; and when women bear a name, are pretty, 
and can waltz — as the Germans can — they are al- 
ways well received. 


THE REAL ONE AND THE OTHER 


W ELL, well,” said Chasseval, as he stood with 
his back to the fire, “ how could any of 
those respectable shopkeepers and wine- 
growers ever believe that that pretty little Parisian 
woman, with her soft, innocent eyes, like those of a 
Madonna, with such smiling lips and golden hair, 
who always dressed so simply, was not their candi- 
date’s wife ? ” 

She was a wonderful help to him, and accom- 
panied him even to the most outlying farms; went 
to the meetings in the small village cafes and had a 
pleasant and suitable word for every one, and did 
not recoil at a glass of mulled wine or a grip of the 
hand, and was always ready to join in a farandole. 
She seemed to be so in love with Elieane Rulhiere, 
to trust him so entirely, to be so proud of forming 
half of his life, and of belonging to him, gave him 
such looks full of happiness and love, and listened 
to all he said so intently, that voters who might have 
hesitated allowed themselves by degrees to be talked 
over and persuaded, and promised their votes to the 
young doctor, whose name they had never heard 
mentioned in the district before. 

That electoral campaign had been like a truant’s 
escapade for Jane Dardenne ; it was a delightful and 


6o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


unexpected holiday, and as she was an actress at 
heart, she played her part seriously, and threw her- 
self into her character, and enjoyed herself more 
than she ever enjoyed herself in her most adventur- 
ous outings. 

And then there came in the pleasure of being 
taken for a woman of good standing, of being flat- 
tered, respected, and envied, and of getting out of 
the usual groove for a time, and also the dream that 
at the end of this journey of a few weeks her lover 
would not separate from her on their return, but 
would sacrifice the woman whom he no longer 
loved, and whom he ironically used to call his Cin- 
derella, to her. 

At night, when they had laid aside all pretence, 
and were alone in their room in the hotel, she 
coaxed him and flattered him, spurred his ambition, 
threw her arms round him, and amid her kisses, 
whispered those words that are as wine to a man’s 
heart. 

Between them they captured the district and won 
the election easily ; and in spite of his youth, Elieane 
Rulhiere was elected by a majority of five thousand. 
Then, of course, there were more fetes and ban- 
quets, at which Jane was present, and where she 
was received with enthusiastic shouts; there were 
fireworks, when she was obliged to set off the first 
rocket, and balls, at which she astonished those 
worthy people by her affability. And when they 
left, three little girls dressed in white, as if they 
were going to be confirmed, came on the platform 
and recited some complimentary verses to her while 


THE REAL ONE AND THE OTHER 6l 

the band played the Marseillaise and the women 
waved their pocket-handkerchiefs and the men their 
hats, and as she leaned out of the carriage window, 
looking charming in her travelling costume, with a 
smile on her lips and with moist eyes, as was fitting 
at such a pathetic leavetaking, actress as she was, 
with a sudden and childlike gesture, she blew kisses 
to them from the tips of her fingers, and said : 

“ Good-by, my friends, good-by, only for the 
present ; I shall never forget you ! ” 

The Deputy, who was also very effusive, had in- 
vited his principal supporters to come and see him 
in Paris, as there were plenty of excursion trains. 
They all took him at his word, and Rulhiere was 
obliged to invite them all to dinner. 

In order to avoid any possible mishaps, he gave 
his wife a foretaste of their guests. He told her 
that they were rather noisy, talkative, and unpol- 
ished, and that they would, no doubt, astonish her 
by their manners and their accent, but that, as they 
had great influence and were excellent men, they 
deserved a good reception. It was a very useful 
precaution, for when they came into the drawing- 
room in their new clothes, expanding with pleasure, 
and with their hair pomatumed as if they had been 
going to a country wedding, they felt inclined to fall 
down before the new Madame Rulhiere, to whom 
the Deputy introduced them, and who seemed to be 
perfectly at home there. 

At first they were embarrassed, felt uncomfortable 
and out of place, did not know what to say, and had 
to seek for words; they buttoned and unbuttoned 


62 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

their gloves, answered her questions at random, and 
racked their brains to discover the solution of the 
enigma. Captain Mouredus looked at the fire with 
the fixed gaze of a somnambulist, Marius Barbaste 
scratched his fingers mechanically, while the three 
others, the factory manager, Casemajel, Roquetton, 
the lawyer, and Dustugue, the hotel proprietor, 
looked at Rulhiere anxiously. 

The lawyer was the first to recover himself. He 
got up from his armchair laughing heartily, dug 
the Deputy in the ribs with his elbow, and said : 

“ I understand it all, I understand it ; you thought 
that people do not come to Paris to be bored, eh? 
Madame is delightful, and I congratulate you, Mon- 
sieur.” 

He gave a wink, and made signs behind his back 
to his friends, and then the captain had his turn. 

“We are not boobies, and that fellow Roquetton 
is the most knowing of the lot of us. Ah! Mon- 
sieur Rulhiere, without any exaggeration, you are 
the best of good fellows.” 

And, with a flushed face and expanding his chest, 
he said sonorously : 

“ They certainly turn them out very pretty in your 
part of the country, my little lady ! ” 

Madame Rulhiere, who did not know what to 
say, had gone up to her husband for protection ; but 
she felt much inclined to go to her own room under 
some pretext or other, in order to escape from her 
intolerable task. She kept her ground, however, 
during the whole of dinner, which was a noisy, 
jovial meal, during which the five electors, with 


THE REAL ONE AND THE OTHER 63 

their elbows on the table and their waistcoats unbut- 
toned, and half drunk, told coarse stories and swore 
like troopers. But as the coffee and the liqueurs 
were served in the smoking-room, she took leave of 
her guests in an impatient voice, and went to her 
own room with the hasty step of an escaped pris- 
oner who is afraid of being retaken. 

The electors sat staring after her with gaping 
mouths, and Mouredus lit a cigar and said : 

“ Just listen to me, Monsieur Rulhiere : it was 
very kind of you to invite us here to your little quiet 
establishment, but to speak to you frankly, I should 
not, in your place, wrong my lawful wife for such a 
stuck-up piece of goods as this one is.” 

“ The captain is quite right,” Roquetton, the no- 
tary, opined ; “ Madame Rulhiere, the lawful Ma- 
dame Rulhiere, is much more amiable and altogether 
nicer. You are a scoundrel to deceive her; but when 
may we hope to see her ? ” 

And with a paternal grimace he added : 

“ But do not be uneasy ; we will all hold our 
tongue; it would be too sad if she were to find it 
out.” 


THE CARTERS' INN 


T HE coachman had jumped from his box and 
was walking slowly by the side of his thin 
horses, waking them up every moment by a 
cut of the whip or a coarse oath. He pointed to the 
top of the hill, where the windows of a solitary 
house were shining like yellow lamps, although it 
was quite late, and said to me : 

“ One gets a good drop there, Monsieur, and well 
served, by George ! ” 

And his eyes flashed in his thin, sunburned face, 
which was of a deep brickdust colour, while he 
smacked his lips like a drunkard who remembers a 
bottle of good liquor that he has lately drunk, and 
straightened himself up at the recollection. 

“ Yes, and well served by a wench who will turn 
your head for you before you have tilted your elbow 
and drunk a glass ! ” 

The moon was rising behind the mountain peaks 
covered with snow which looked almost like blood 
under its rays, and were crowned by dark brown 
clouds, which whirled and floated about, reminding 
the passenger of some terrible Medusa's head. The 
gloomy plains of Capsir, which were traversed by 
torrents, with extensive meadows in which unde- 
fined forms were moving about, fields of rye like 


THE CARTERS’ INN 


65 


huge golden tablecovers, and here and there 
wretched villages and broad sheets of water, into 
which the stars seemed to look in a melancholy man- 
ner, opened out to the view. Damp gusts of wind 
swept along the road, bringing a strong smell of 
hay, of resin, of unknown flowers; and erratic 
pieces of rock were scattered on the surface like 
huge spectral boundary stones. 

The driver pulled his broad-brimmed felt hat over 
his eyes, twirled his large moustache, and said in 
an obsequious voice : 

“ Does Monsieur wish to stop here ? This is the 
place ! ” 

It was a wretched wayside inn, with a reddish 
slate roof that looked as if it were suffering from 
leprosy, and before the door there stood three wag- 
ons drawn by mules and loaded with huge logs 
which took up nearly the whole of the road. The 
animals, who were in the habit of halting there, 
were dozing, and their heavy loads exhaled the 
odour of a pillaged forest. 

Inside the house three wagoners were sitting in 
front of the fire, which crackled loudly ; one of them, 
an old man, while the other two were young. Bot- 
tles and glasses stood on a large round table be- 
side them, and they were singing and laughing bois- 
terously. A woman with large round hips, and with 
a lace cap pinned to her hair, in the Catalan fashion, 
who looked strong and bold and had a certain 
amount of gracefulness about her, with a pretty but 
untidy head, was urging them to undo the strings 
of their great leather purses, and replied to their 


66 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


somewhat indelicate jokes in a shrill voice, as she 
sat on the knee of the youngest and allowed him 
to kiss her without any signs of shame. 

The coachman pushed open the door, like a man 
who knows that he is at home. 

“ Good evening, Glaizette, and everybody ; there 
is room for two more, I suppose ? ” 

The wagoners did not speak, but looked at us 
cunningly and angrily, like dogs whose food had 
been taken from them and who show their teeth, 
ready to bite, while the woman shrugged her shoul- 
ders and looked into their eyes like some female 
wild beast tamer. Then she asked us, with a strange 
smile : 

“ What am I to bring you ? ” 

“ Two glasses of cognac, and the best you have 
in the cupboard, Glaizette, ” the coachman replied, 
rolling a cigarette. 

While she was uncorking the bottle I noticed how 
green her eyes were — it was a fascinating, tempting 
green, like that of the great green grasshopper — 
and also how small her hands were, which showed 
that she did not use them much; how white her 
teeth were, and how her voice, which was rather 
rough, through cooing, had a cruel and at the same 
time a coaxing sound. She was the typical hostess 
of a wayside inn of that description, not overscrupu- 
lous and with a store of secrets. 

I was anxious to escape from her as soon as pos- 
sible ; no longer to see her pale green eyes, and her 
mouth that bestowed caresses from pure charity, no 
longer to feel the woman with her beautiful white 


THE CARTERS’ INN 


67 


hands so near me, so I threw her a piece of gold, 
and made my escape without saying a word to her, 
without waiting for any change, and without even 
wishing her good night, for I felt the caress of her 
smile and the disdainfulness of her looks. . . . 

The carriage started off at a gallop to Formi- 
gueres, amid a furious jingling of bells. I could 
not sleep any more; I wanted to know where that 
woman came from, but I was ashamed to ask the 
driver and to show any interest in such a creature, 
and when he began to talk, as we were going up an- 
other hill, as if he had guessed my thoughts, he told 
me all he knew about Glaizette. I listened to him 
with the attention of a child to whom somebody is 
telling some wonderful fairy tale. 

She came from Fontpedrouze, a muleteers’ vil- 
lage, where the men spend their time in drinking 
and gambling at the inn, when they are not trav- 
elling on the high roads with their mules, while the 
women do all the field work, carry the heaviest loads 
on their back, and lead a life of toil and misery. 

Her father kept an inn, the girl grew up very 
happy; she was courted before she was fifteen, and 
was so coquettish that she was certain to be almost 
always found in front of her looking-glass, smiling 
at her own beauty, arranging her hair, trying to 
make herself like a young lady on the prado. And 
now as none of the family knew how to save a 
penny but spent more than they earned, and were 
like cracked jugs, from which the water escapes 
drop by drop, they found themselves ruined one fine 
day. So on the “ Feast of Our Lady of Succour,” 


68 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


when people go on a pilgrimage to Font Romea, 
and the villages are consequently deserted, the inn- 
keeper set fire to the house. The crime was dis- 
covered through Glaizette, who could not make up 
her mind to leave behind her the looking-glass with 
which her room was adorned, and so had carried it 
off under her petticoat. 

The parents were sentenced to many years’ im- 
prisonment, and being set free to live as best she 
could, the girl became a servant, going from one 
place to another, inherited some property from an 
old farmer, whom she had caught, as if he were a 
thrush on a limed twig, and with the money she had 
built this inn on the new road which was being built 
across the Capsir. 

“A regular bad one, Monsieur,” the coachman 
said, in conclusion, “ a vixen such as one does not 
see now in the worst garrison towns, and who would 
open the door to the whole confraternity, and not at 
all avaricious, but thoroughly honest.” 

I interrupted him in spite of myself, as if his 
words had pained me, while I thought of those pale 
green eyes, those magic eyes, eyes to be dreamed 
about, the colour of grasshoppers, and I looked for 
them, and saw them in the darkness; they danced 
before me like phosphorescent lights, and I would 
have given the whole contents of my purse to that 
man, if he would only have been silent and urged 
his horses onto full speed, so that their mad gallop 
might carry me off quickly, quickly and far, and 
continually farther from that girl. 


THE MARQUIS 


W HEN that obstinate little Sonia, with the 
Russian caprices, said : “ I choose to do 

it,” it was quite useless to remonstrate. 
She was so delicate and pretty, with her slighfly 
tilted nose and her rosy, childish cheeks, and every 
female perversity was reflected in the depths of her 
strange eyes, which were the colour of the sea on a 
stormy evening. Yes, she was very charming, very 
fantastic, and, above all, so Russian, so deliciously 
and imperiously Russian, and all the more Russian 
as she came from Montmartre, and in spite of this, 
pot one of her seven admirers who composed her 
usual menagerie had laughed when their enslaver 
said one day: 

“ You know my feudal castle at Pludun-Her- 
louet, near Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer, which I bought 
two years ago, and in which I have not yet set foot ? 
Very well, then ! The day after to-morrow, which 
is the first of May, we will have a housewarming 
there.” 

The seven had not asked for any further expla- 
nation, but had accompanied little Sonia, and were 
now ready to sit down to dinner under her presi- 
dency in the dining-room rof the old castle, which 
was situated ten hours from Paris. They had ar- 


70 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


rived there that morning; they were going to have 
dinner and supper together, and start off again at 
daybreak next morning; such were Sonia’s orders, 
and nobody had made the slightest objection. 

Two of her admirers, however, who were not yet 
used to her sudden whims, had felt some surprise, 
which was quickly checked by expressions of en- 
thusiastic pleasure on the part of the others. 

“ What a delightfully original idea ! Nobody else 
would have thought of such things ! Positively, no- 
body else. Oh, these Russians ! ” But those who 
had known her for some time, and who had been 
consequently prepared not to be surprised at any- 
thing, found it all quite natural. 

It was half-past six in the evening, and the gen- 
tlemen were going to dress. Sonia had made up 
her mind to keep on her mourning gown, or if she 
dressed she would do so later. Just then she was 
not inclined to move out of her great rocking-chair 
from which she could see the sun setting over the 
sea. The sight always delighted her very much. It 
might have been taken for a large red billiard ball, 
rebounding from the green cloth. How curious it 
was ! And how lucky that she was all alone to look 
at it, for those seven would not have understood it 
at all ! Those men never have any soul, have they ? 

Certainly the sunset was strange at first, but at 
length it made her sad, and just now Sonia’s heart 
felt almost heavy, though the very sadness was 
sweet. She was congratulating herself more than 
ever on being alone, so as to enjoy that languor 
which was almost like a gentle dream ; when, in per- 


THE MARQUIS 


71 


feet harmony with that melancholy and sweet sen- 
sation, a voice rose from the road, which was over- 
hung by a terrace, a tremulous but fresh and pure 
voice singing the following words to a slow melody : 

“Walking in Paris, 

Having my drink, 

A friend of mine whispered: 

What do you think ? 

If love makes you thirsty, 

Then wine makes you lusty” 

The sound died away, as the singer continued on 
his way, and Sonia was afraid that she should not 
hear the rest; it was really terrible; so she jumped 
out of the rocking-chair, ran to the balustrade of the 
terrace, and, leaning over it, called out : “ Sing it 
again ! I insist on it. The song, the whole song ! ” 

On hearing this, the singer looked round and 
then came back, without hurrying, however, and as 
if he were prompted by curiosity rather than by any 
desire to comply with her order. Holding his hand 
over his eyes, he looked at Sonia attentively, and on 
her part, she had plenty of time to look closely at 
him. 

He was an old man of about sixty-five, and his 
rags and the wallet over his shoulder denoted a beg- 
gar, but Sonia immediately noticed that there was a 
certain amount of affectation in his wretchedness. 
His hair and beard were not shaggy and ragged, as 
such men usually wear it, and he evidently had his 
hair cut occasionally, and had a fine, and even dis- 
tinguished, face, as Sonia said to herself. But she 
did not pay much attention to that, as for some 


72 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


time she had noticed that old men at the seaside 
nearly all looked like gentlemen. 

When he got to the foot of the terrace the beg- 
gar stopped, and shook his head and said : “ Pret- 
ty ! The little woman is very pretty ! ” But he did 
not obey Sonia’s order, and she repeated it, almost 
angrily this time, beating a violent tattoo on the 
stonework. “ The song, the whole song ! ” 

He did not seem to hear, but stood there gaping, 
with a vacant smile on his face, his head rather in- 
clined toward his left shoulder, a thin stream of 
saliva trickling from his lips on to his beard, and 
his looks becoming more and more ardent : “ How 
stupid lam!” Sonia suddenly thought. “ Of course 
he is waiting for something.” She felt in her pocket, 
in which she always carried some gold by way of 
change, took out a twenty-franc piece, and threw it 
down to the old man. He, however, did not take 
any notice of it, but continued looking at her ecstati- 
cally, and was only roused from his state of bliss by 
receiving a handful of gravel which she threw at 
him, right in his face. 

“Do sing!” she exclaimed. “You must, I will 
have it ; I have paid you.” And then, still smiling, 
he picked up the napoleon and threw it back on to 
the terrace, and said proudly, though in a very gen- 
tle voice : “ I do not ask for charity, little lady ; 

but if it gives you pleasure, I will sing you the 
whole song, the whole of it, as often as you please. ,, 
And he began the song again, in his tremulous 
voice, which was more tremulous than it had been 
before, as if he were much affected. 


THE MARQUIS 


73 


Sonia was overcome, and without knowing why 
was moved to tears ; delighted because the man had 
spoken to her so familiarly, and rather ashamed at 
having treated him as a beggar. Her whole being 
was carried away by the slow rhythm of the melody, 
which related an old love story, and when he had 
finished he again looked at her with a smile, and as 
she was crying he said to her : “ I daresay you 

have a beautiful horse, or a little dog that you are 
very fond of, which is ill? Take me to it, and I 
will cure it ; I understand it thoroughly. I will do 
it for nothing, because you are so pretty.” 

She could not help laughing. “ You must not 
laugh,” he said. “ What are you laughing at ? Be- 
cause I am poor? But I am not, for I had work 
yesterday, and again to-day. I have a bag full. 
See, look here ! ” And from his belt he drew a 
leather purse in which coppers rattled. He poured 
them out into the palm of his hand, and said mer- 
rily : “You see, little one, I have a purse. Forty- 
seven sous ; forty-seven ! ” 

“ So you will not take my napoleon ? ” Sonia 
said. 

“ Certainly not,” he replied. “ I do not want it ; 
and then, I tell you again, I will not accept alms. 
So you do not know me ? ” 

“ No, I do not.” 

“ Very well, ask any one in the neighbourhood. 
Everybody will tell you that the Marquis does not 
live on charity.” 

The Marquis! At that name she suddenly re- 
membered that two years ago she had heard his 


7 4 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


story. It was at the time that she bought the prop- 
erty, and the vendor had mentioned the Marquis 
as one of the curiosities of the soil. He was said 
to be half silly, at any rate an original, almost in 
his dotage, living by any lucky bits that he could 
make as horse trader and veterinary. The peasants 
gave him a little work, as they feared that he might 
throw spells over any one who refused to employ 
him. They also respected him on account of his 
former wealth and of his title, for he had been rich, 
very rich, and they said that he really was a Mar- 
quis, and it was said that he had ruined himself in 
Paris by speculating. The reason, of course, was 
women ! 

At that moment the dinner bell began to ring, 
and a wild idea entered Sonia’s head. She ran to 
the little door that opened on to the terrace, over- 
took the musician, and with a ceremonious bow she 
said : “ Will you do me the pleasure and the honour 
of dining with me, Marquis ? ” 

The old man left off smiling and grew serious; 
he put his hand to his forehead, as if to bring old 
recollections back, and then, with a very formal, 
old-fashioned bow, he said : 

“ With pleasure, my dear.” And, letting his 
wallet drop, he offered Sonia his arm. 

When she introduced this new guest to her ad- 
mirers, all the seven, even the best drilled, started. 
“ I see what disturbs you,” she said. “ It is his 
dress. Well! It really leaves much to be desired. 
But wait a moment, that can soon be arranged.” 

She rang for her lady’s maid, and whispered 


THE MARQUIS 


75 


something to her, and then she said : “ Marquis, 
your bath is ready in your dressing-room. If you 
will follow Sabina she will show you to it. These 
gentlemen and I will wait dinner for you.” 

As soon as he had gone out she said to the young- 
est there : “ And now, Ernest, go upstairs and un- 
dress ; I will allow you to dine in your morning-coat, 
and you will give your dress-coat and the rest to 
Sabina for the Marquis.” 

Ernest was delighted at having to play a part in 
the piece, and the six others clapped their hands. 
“ Nobody else would have thought of such a thing; 
nobody, nobody ! ” 

Half an hour later they were sitting at dinner, 
the Marquis in a dress-coat on Sonia’s left, and 
it was a great disillusion for the seven. They had 
reckoned on having some fun with him, and Ernest 
especially, who set up as a wit, had intended to 
draw him out. But at the first attempt of this sort 
Sonia had given him a look which they all under- 
stood, and dinner began very ceremoniously for the 
seven, but merrily and without restraint between 
Sonia and the old man. 

They pulled very long faces, those seven, but in- 
wardly, if one can say so, for, of course, they could 
not dream of showing how put out they were, and 
those inward long faces grew longer still, when. 
Sonia said to the old fellow, quite suddenly : “ I 
say, how stupid these gentlemen are! Suppose we 
leave them to themselves ? ” 

The Marquis rose, offered her his arm again, 
and said : “ Where shall we go ? ” But Sonia’s 


76 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


only reply was to sing the couplet of a song which 
she remembered. 

And the seven, who were altogether dumfounded 
this time, and who could not conceal their vexation, 
saw the couple disappear out of the door which led 
to Sonia's apartments. “ Hum ! ” Ernest ventured 
to say, “this is really rather too much!" “Yes," 
the eldest of the menagerie replied. “ It certainly is 
rather peculiar, but it will do! You know there is 
yiobody like her for thinking of such things ! " 

The next morning the chateau bell woke them up 
at six o’clock, when they agreed to return to Paris, 
and the seven men asked each other whether they 
should go and wish Sonia good morning, as usual, 
before she was out of her room. Ernest hesitated 
more than any of them about it, and it was not until 
Sabina, her maid, came and told them that her mis- 
tress insisted upon it that they could make up their 
minds to do so, and they were surprised to find 
Sonia in bed. 

“ Well ! " Ernest asked boldly, “ and what about 
the Marquis ? " 

“ He left very early," Sonia replied. 

“ A queer sort of Marquis, I must say ! " Ernest 
observed contemptuously, and growing bolder. 

“ Why, I should like to know ? " Sonia replied, 
drawing herself up. “ The man has his own habits, 
I suppose ! " 

“ Do you know, Madame," Sabina observed, 
“ that he came back half an hour after he left? " 

“ Ah ! " Sonia said, getting up and walking about 
the room. “ He came back ? What did he want ? " 


THE MARQUIS 


77 


“ He did not say, Madame. He merely went up- 
stairs to see you. He was dressed in his old clothes 
again.” 

And suddenly Sonia uttered a loud cry, and 
clapped her hands, and the seven came round to see 
what had caused her emotion. 

“ Look here ! Just look here 1 ” she cried. “ Do 
look on the mantelpiece! It is really charming! 
Do look!” 

And with a smiling and yet somewhat melan- 
choly expression in her eyes, with a tender look 
which they could not understand, she showed them 
a small bunch of wild flowers, by the side of a heap 
of pennies. 

Mechanically she took them up and counted them, 
and then began to cry. 

There were forty-seven of them. 


AN ADVENTURE 


C OME! Come!” said Pierre Dufaille, shrug- 
ging his shoulders. “ What do you mean by 
saying that there are no more adventures? 
Say that there are no more adventurous men, and 
you will be right! Yes, nobody ventures to trust 
to chance in these days, for as soon as there is any 
slight mystery, or a spice of danger, they draw back. 
If, however, a man is willing to go into an adven- 
ture and to run the risk of anything that may hap- 
pen, he can still meet with adventures, and even I, 
who never look for them, met with one in my life, 
and a very startling one ; let me tell you about it. 

“ I was staying in Florence, and was living very 
quietly, and all I indulged in, in the way of adven- 
tures, was to listen occasionally to the immoral pro- 
posals with which every stranger is beset at night 
on the Piazza de la Signoria by some worthy Pan- 
darus or other, with a head like that of a venerable 
priest. These excellent fellows generally introduce 
you to their families, where debauchery is carried 
on in a very simple and almost patriarchal fashion, 
and where one does not run the slightest risk. 

“ One day as I was admiring Benvenuto Cellini's 
wonderful Perseus, in front of the Loggia del 


AN ADVENTURE 


79 


Lanzi, I suddenly felt my sleeve pulled somewhat 
roughly, and on turning round I found myself face 
to face with a woman of about fifty, who said to 
me with a strong German accent: 4 You are French, 
Monsieur, are you not?’ 4 Certainly, I am/ I re- 
plied. ‘ And would you like to go home with a 
very pretty woman ? * 

“ ‘ Most certainly I should/ I replied, with a 
laugh. 

“ Nothing could have been funnier than the looks 
and the serious air of the procuress, or than the 
strangeness of the proposal, made in broad daylight, 
and in very bad French, but it was even worse when 
she added : ‘ Do you know everything they do in 
Paris ? ’ 

“ * What do you mean, my good woman ? ’ I 
asked her, rather startled. * What is done in Paris 
that is not done everywhere else ? ’ 

“ However, when she explained her meaning, I 
replied that I certainly could not, and as I was not 
quite so immodest as the lady, I blushed a little. 
But not for long, for almost immediately afterward 
I grew pale when she said : 

“ * I want to assure myself of it personally/ She 
said this in the same phlegmatic manner, which did 
not seem so funny to me now, but, on the contrary, 
rather frightened me. 

“ ‘ What 1 * I said. * Personally ! You ! Explain 
yourself ! * 

“ If I had been rather surprised before, I was al- 
together astonished at her explanation. It was in- 
deed an adventure, and was almost like a romance. 


8o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


I could scarcely believe my ears, but this is what 
she told me : 

“ She was the confidential attendant on a lady 
moving in high society, who wished to be initiated 
into the most secret refinements of Parisian high 
life, and who had done me the honour of choosing 
me for her companion. But then this preliminary 
test! ‘By Jove!’ I said to myself, ‘this old Ger- 
man hag is not so stupid as she looks ! ’ And I 
laughed in my sleeve as I listened to what she was 
saying to persuade me. 

“ ‘ My mistress is the prettiest woman you can 
dream of ; a real beauty ; springtime ! A flower ! ’ 

“ ‘ You must excuse me, but if your mistress is 
really like springtime and a flower, you (pray ex- 
cuse me for being so blunt) are not exactly that, 
and perhaps I should not exactly be in a mood to 
humour you, my dear lady, in the same way that I 
might her/ 

“She jumped back, astonished in turn: ‘Why, 
I only want to satisfy myself with my own eyes; 
not by injuring you/ And she finished her expla- 
nation, which had been incomplete before. All she 
had to do was to go with me to Mother Patata’s 
well-known establishment, and there to be present 
while I conversed with one of its fair and frail in- 
habitants. 

“ ‘ Oh ! ’ I said to myself ; ‘ I was mistaken in her 
tastes. She is, of course, an old, shriveled-up 
woman, as I guessed, but she is a specialist. This 
is interesting, upon my word! I never met with 
such a one before ! ' 


AN ADVENTURE 


8l 


“ Here, gentlemen, I must beg you to allow me to 
hide my face for a moment. What I said was evi- 
dently not strictly correct, and I am rather ashamed 
of it; my excuse must be that I was young, that 
Patata’s was a celebrated place, of which I had 
heard wonderful things said, but the entry to which 
was barred me on account of my small means. Five 
napoleons was the price ! Fancy! I could not treat 
myself to it, and so I accepted the good lady’s of- 
fer. I do not say that it was not disagreeable, but 
what was I to do ? And then, the old woman was a 
German, and so her five napoleons were a slight re- 
turn for our five milliards, which we paid them as 
our war indemnity. 

“ Well, Patata’s boarder was charming, the old 
woman was not too troublesome, and your humble 
servant did his best to sustain the ancient glory of 
Frenchmen. 

“ Let me drink my disgrace to the dregs ! On 
the next day but one after I was waiting at the 
statue of Perseus. It was shameful, I confess, but 
I enjoyed the partial restitution of the five milliards, 
and it is surprising how a Frenchman loses his dig- 
nity when he is travelling. 

“ The good lady made her appearance at the ap- 
pointed time. It was quite dark and I followed her 
without a word, for, after all, I was not very proud 
of the part I was playing. But if you only knew 
how fair that little girl at Patata’s was ! As I went 
along I thought only of her, and did not pay any at- 
tention to where we were going, and I was only 
roused from my reverie by hearing the old woman 


82 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


say: ‘ Here we are. Try to be as entertaining as 
you were the day before yesterday.’ 

“ We were not outside Patata’s house, but in a 
narrow street running by the side of a palace with 
high walls, and in front of us was a small door, 
which the old woman opened gently. 

“ For a moment I felt inclined to draw back. Ap- 
parently the old hag was also ardent on her own 
account ! She had me in a trap ! No doubt she 
wanted in her turn to make use of my small talents ! 
But, no ! That was impossible ! 

“ ‘Go in ! Go in ! ’ she said. ‘ What are you 
afraid of? My mistress is so pretty, so pretty, much 
prettier than the little girl of the other day.’ 

“ So it was really true, this story out of The 
Arabian Nights f Why not? And, after all, what 
was I risking? The good woman would certainly 
not injure me, and so I went in, though somewhat 
nervously. 

“ Oh ! My friend, what an hour I spent then ! 
Paradise ! and it would be useless, impossible to de- 
scribe it to you. Apartments fit for a princess, and 
one of those princesses out of fairy-tales, a fairy 
herself. An exquisite German woman, exquisite as 
German women can be when they try. An Un- 
dine of Heinrich Heine’s, with hair like the Virgin 
Mary’s, innocent blue eyes, and a skin like straw- 
berries and cream. 

“ Suddenly, however, my Undine got up, and her 
face was convulsed with fury and pride. Then she 
rushed behind some hangings, where she began to 
give vent to a flood of German words, which I did 


AN ADVENTURE 


83 


not understand, while I remained standing, dum- 
founded. But just then the old woman came in, and 
said, shaking with fear : 4 Quick, quick ; dress your- 
self and go, if you do not wish to be killed ! ’ 

“ I asked no question, for what was the use of 
trying to understand ? Besides, the old woman, who 
grew more and more terrified, could not find any 
French words, and chattered wildly. I jumped up 
and got into my shoes and overcoat, and ran down 
the stairs and in the street. 

44 Ten minutes later I recovered my breath and 
my senses, without knowing what streets I had been 
through nor where I had come from, and I stole 
furtively into my hotel as if I had been a malefactor. 

44 In the cafes the next morning nothing was 
talked of except a crime that had been committed 
during the night. A German baron had killed his 
wife with a revolver, but he had been liberated on 
bail, as he had appealed to his counsel, to whom 
he had given the following explanation, to the truth 
of which the lady companion of the Baroness had 
certified : 

44 She had been married to her husband almost 
by force, and detested him, and she had some par- 
ticular reasons (which were not specified) for her 
hatred of him. In order to have her revenge on him 
she had had him seized, bound and gagged by four 
hired ruffians, who had been caught, and who had 
confessed everything. Thus reduced to immobility 
and unable to help himself, the Baron had been 
obliged to witness a degrading scene, where his 
wife caressed a Frenchman, thus outraging conjugal 


84 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


fidelity and German honour at the same time. As 
soon as he was set at liberty the Baron had punished 
his faithless wife, and was now seeking her accom- 
plice. ,, 

“ And what did you do ? ” some one asked Pierre 
Dufaille. 

“ The only thing I could do, by George ! ” he re- 
plied. “ I put myself at the poor devil’s disposal ; 
it was his right, and so we fought a duel. Alas ! It 
was with swords, and he ran me right through the 
body. That was also his right, but he exceeded his 
right when he called me her ponce. Then I gave 
him his change, and as I fell I called out with all 
the strength that remained to me : ‘A Frenchman ! 
A Frenchman ! Long live France ! * ” 


THE UPSTART 


D UPONTEL, you know, good-natured and 
stout, the type of a happy man, his fat cheeks 
red as ripe apples, his small, sandy mous- 
tache curling up over his thick lips, his prominent 
eyes that show no emotion or sorrow, and remind 
one of the calm eyes of a cow or an ox, and his 
long body fixed on two little crooked legs, which 
gained him the nickname of “ corkscrew ” from 
some fairy of the ballet. 

Dupontel, who had taken the trouble to be born, 
but not like the grand seigneurs whom Beaumar- 
chais made fun of once upon a time, was ballasted 
with a respectable number of millions, as is becom- 
ing in the sole heir of a house that had sold house- 
hold utensils and appliances for over a century. 

Naturally, like every other nouveau riche who 
respects himself, he wished to appear something, to 
play at being a clubman, and also to play to the 
gallery, because he had been educated at Vaugirard 
and knew a little English; because he had gone 
through his service in the army for twelve months 
at Rouen; because he was a tolerable singer, could 
drive four-in-hand, and play lawn tennis. 

Always studiedly well-dressed, too correct in 
every way, copying his way of speaking, his hats 


86 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and his trousers from the three or four snobs who 
set the fashion, reproducing other people’s witti- 
cisms, learning anecdotes and jokes by heart, like a 
lesson, to use them again at small parties, and con- 
stantly laughing, without knowing why his friends 
burst into roars of merriment. Of course, he was a 
perfect fool, but, after all, a capital fellow, to whom 
it was only right to extend a good deal of in- 
dulgence. 

When he had had a great many love affairs and 
had made the discovery that in love money does not 
create happiness two-thirds of the time, that they 
had all deceived him and made him perfectly ridicu- 
lous at the end of the week, Charles Dupontel 
made up his mind to settle down as a respectable 
married man, and to marry not from calculation or 
from reason, but for love. 

One autumn afternoon at Auteuil he noticed in 
front of the club stand, among the number of pretty 
women who were standing round the braziers, a 
girl with such a lovely delicate complexion that it 
looked like apple blossoms ; her hair was like 
threads of gold, and she was so slight and supple 
that she reminded him of those outlines of saints 
which one sees in old stained glass in church win- 
dows. There was also something enigmatical about 
her, for she had at the same time the delightfully 
ingenuous look of a schoolgirl during the holidays, 
and also of some enlightened young lady who al- 
ready knows the how and the why of everything, 
who is exuberant with youth and life, and who is 
eagerly waiting for the moment when marriage will 


THE UPSTART 


87 


at length allow her to say and to do everything that 
comes into her head, and to amuse herself to satiety. 

Then she had such tiny feet that they could have 
been held in a woman’s hand, a waist that could 
have been clasped by a bracelet, curling eyelashes 
which fluttered like the wings of a butterfly, an 
impudent and sensual nose, and a vague, mocking 
smile that puckered her lips, like the petals of a 
rose. 

Her father was a member of the Jockey Club, 
who was generally cleaned out, as they call it, at 
the Grand Prix, but who yet held his own bravely 
and went right on, and who kept himself afloat by 
prodigies of coolness and skill. He belonged to a 
race which could prove that his ancestors had been 
at the court of Charlemagne, and not musicians or 
cooks, as some people declared. 

Her youth and beauty, and her father’s pedigree, 
dazzled Dupontel, upset his brain, and altogether 
turned his mind upside down, and, combined, they 
seemed to him to be a mirage of happiness and of 
pride .of family. 

He obtained an introduction to her father, at the 
end of a game of baccarat, invited him to shoot with 
him, and a month later, as if it were an affair to 
be hurried over, he asked for, and obtained, the 
hand of Mademoiselle Therese de Montsaigne, and 
felt as happy as a miner who has discovered a vein 
of precious metal. 

The young woman did not require more than 
twenty-four hours to discover that her husband was 
nothing but a ridiculous puppet, and immediately 


88 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


set about to consider how she might best escape 
from her cage and befool the poor fellow, who 
loved her with all his heart. 

And she deceived him without the least pity or 
the slightest scruple; she did it as if from instinc- 
tive hatred, as if it were a necessity for her not only 
to make him ridiculous, but also to forget that she 
was bound in honour to him. 

She was cruel, as all women are when they do 
not love, delighted in doing audacious and absurd 
things, and in visiting everything, and in braving 
danger. She seemed like a young colt that is intoxi- 
cated with the sun, the air, and its liberty, and 
gallops wildly across the meadows, jumps hedges 
and ditches, kicks, and whinnies joyously, and rolls 
about in the long, sweet grass. 

But Dupontel remained quite undisturbed ; he 
had not the slightest suspicion, and was the first 
to laugh when anybody told him some good story 
of a husband who had been deceived, although his 
wife repelled him, quarrelled with him, and con- 
stantly pretended to be out of sorts or tired out, 
in order to escape from him. She seemed to take 
a malicious pleasure in annoying him by her per- 
sonal remarks, her disenchanting answers, and her 
apparent listlessness. 

They saw a great deal of company, and he called 
himself Du Pontel now, and even had thoughts of 
buying a Papal title; he only read certain news- 
papers, kept up a regular correspondence with the 
Orleans princes, was thinking of starting a racing 
stable, and finished up by believing that he really 


THE UPSTART 


89 


was a fashionable man, and strutted about, and was 
puffed out with conceit, as he had probably never 
read La Fontaine’s fable in which he tells the story 
of the ass that is laden with relics which people 
salute, and so takes their bows to himself. 

Suddenly, however, anonymous letters disturbed 
his quietude and tore the veil from his eyes. 

At first he would tear them up without reading 
them and shrug his shoulders disdainfully; but he 
received so many of them, and the writer seemed 
so determined to dot his i’s and cross his t’s and to 
make things clear to him, that the unhappy man 
began to grow disturbed, and to watch and look 
about him. He instituted minute inquiries, and 
arrived at the conclusion that he no longer had the 
right to make fun of other husbands, and that he 
was the perfect counterpart of Sganarelle. 

Furious at having been duped, he set a whole 
private detective agency at work, continually acted 
a part, and one evening appeared unexpectedly with 
a commissary of police in the snug little bachelor’s 
quarters which concealed his wife’s escapades. 

Therese, who was terribly frightened and at her 
wits’ end at being thus surprised, and pale with 
shame and terror, hid herself behind the curtains, 
while her lover, an officer of dragoons, was very 
much vexed at being mixed up in such a pinchbeck 
scandal, and at being caught by these men who were 
so correctly dressed in frock coats. He frowned 
angrily, and had to restrain himself so as not to 
fling his partner in guilt out of the window. 

The police commissary, who was calmly looking 


9 ° 


GUY DJE MAUPASSANT 


at this little scene with the coolness of a connoisseur 
prepared to verify the fact that they were caught 
in flagrante delictu, in an ironical voice said to the 
husband who had claimed his services : 

“ I must ask for your name in full, Monsieur ? ” 

“ Charles Joseph Edward Dupontel,” was the 
answer. And as the commissary was writing it 
down from his dictation he added suddenly : “ Du 
Pontel in two words, if you please, Monsieur le 
Commissionaire ! ” 


THE OLD MAID 


T HE lonely country house of Comte Eustache 
d’Etchegorry was like a poor man’s home 
where the family do not have a full meal 
every day and where the bottles more frequently 
contain water than wine, and where no candles are 
lighted until it grows dark. 

It was an old, timeworn building; the walls were 
crumbling to pieces, the grated iron gates were 
eaten by rust, the holes in the broken windows had 
been mended with newspaper, and the ancestral por- 
traits which hung against the walls showed that it 
was no tiller of the soil, no miserable labourer whose 
strength had gradually given out and left his back 
bent, who lived there. Great, knotty elm trees shel- 
tered it, as if they had been a tall green screen, and 
a large garden, full of wild rose bushes and of 
straggling plants, as well as of sickly looking vege- 
tables, which sprang up half withered from the 
sandy soil, extended down to the bank of the river. 

From the house one could hear the monotonous 
sound of the water, which at one time rushed yel- 
low and impetuous toward the sea, and then again 
seemed driven back by some invisible force toward 
the town, which could be seen in the distance, with 
its pointed spires, its ramparts, and its ships at 


92 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


anchor by the side of the quay, and its citadel built 
on the top of a hill. 

One got a strong whiff of the sea mingled with 
the resinous smell of pine logs and of the large 
nets, with great pieces of seaweed clinging to them, 
which were drying in the sun. 

Monsieur d’Etchegorry did not like the country, 
but was of a sociable rather than of a solitary na- 
ture, for he never walked alone, but kept step with 
the retired officers who lived there, and frequently 
played game after game of piquet at the cafe, when 
he was in town ; so why did he bury himself in such 
a solitary place, by the side of a dusty road at Bou- 
cau, a village close to the town, where on Sundays 
the soldiers took off their tunics and sat in their 
shirt sleeves in the public houses, drank the thin 
wine of the country, and teased the girls? 

What secret reasons had he for selling the man- 
sion which he owned at Bayonne, close to the bish- 
op’s palace, and condemning his daughter, a girl 
of nineteen, to such a dull, listless, solitary life, 
counting the minutes far from everybody, as if she 
had been a nun? No one knew, but most people 
said that he had lost immense sums in gambling, and 
had wasted his fortune and ruined his credit in 
doubtful speculations. They wondered whether he 
still regretted the tender, sweet woman whom he 
had lost, who died one evening, after years of suf- 
fering, like a church lamp whose oil has been con- 
sumed to the last drop. Was he seeking for perfect 
oblivion, for that soothing repose in nature, in which 
a man becomes enervated, and which envelops him 


THE OLD MAID 


93 


like a moist, warm cloth? How could he be satis- 
fied with such an existence, with the bad cooking 
and the careless, untidy ways of a charwoman, and 
with the shabby clothes, discoloured by use, that he 
always wore? 

His numerous relatives had been anxious about 
it at first, and had tried to cure him of his apparent 
hypochondria, and to persuade him to occupy him- 
self with something, but as he was obstinate, avoided 
them, rejected their friendly offers with arrogance 
and self-sufficiency, even his brothers had abandoned 
him, and almost renounced him. All their affection 
had been transferred to the poor child who shared 
his solitude, and who endured all that wretchedness 
with the resignation of a saint. Thanks to them, 
she had a few gleams of pleasure in her exile, and 
was not dressed like a beggar. She received invita- 
tions, and appeared here and there at some ball, 
concert, or tennis party, and the girl was extremely 
grateful to them for it all, although she would much 
have preferred that nobody should have held out a 
helping hand to her, but have left her to her dull 
life, without any day dreams or homesickness, so 
that she might grow used to her lot, and day by 
day lose all that remained to her of her pride of 
race and of her youth. 

With her sensitive and proud nature, she felt 
that she was not treated exactly as others were in 
society, that people showed her either too much 
pity or too much indifference, that they knew all 
about her side life of undeserved poverty, and that 
in the folds of her muslin dress they could smell 


94 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the mustiness of her home. If she was animated 
or buoyed up with secret hopes in her heart, if there 
was a smile on her lips and her eyes were bright 
when she went out at the gate and the horses car- 
ried her oil to town at a rapid trot, she was all the 
more low-spirited and tearful when she returned 
home, and she would shut herself up in her room 
and find fault with her destiny, declaring to herself 
that she would imitate her father, show relatives 
and friends politely out, with a passive and resigned 
gesture, and make herself so disagreeable and em- 
barrassing that they would grow tired of her in the 
end, leave long intervals between their visits, and 
finally would not come to see her at all, but would 
turn away from her, as if from a hospital where 
incurable patients lay dying. 

Nevertheless, the older the Count grew the more 
the supplies in the small country house diminished, 
and the more painful and harder existence became. 
If a morsel of bread was left uneaten on the table, 
if an unexpected dish was served up at table, if 
she put a piece of ribbon in her hair, he would heap 
violent, spiteful reproaches on her, torrents of rage 
which defile the mouth, and violent threats like those 
of a madman who is tormented by some fixed idea. 
Monsieur d’Etchegorry had dismissed the servant 
and engaged a charwoman, whom he intended to 
pay by small sums on account, and he used to go to 
market with a basket on his arm. 

He locked up every morsel of food, would count 
the lumps of sugar and charcoal, and bolted him- 
self in all day long in a room larger than the rest, 


THE OLD MAID 


95 


which for a long time had served as a drawing- 
room. At times he would be rather more gentle, as 
if he were troubled by vague thoughts, and used to 
say to his daughter, in an agonized voice and trem- 
bling all over : “ You will never ask me for any 

accounts, will you? You will never demand your 
mother’s fortune ? ” 

She always gave him the required promise, did 
not worry him with any questions, nor give vent to 
any complaints, and thinking of her cousins, who 
would have good dowries, who were growing up 
happily and peacefully amid careful and affection- 
ate surroundings and beautiful old furniture, who 
were certain to be loved and to get married some 
day, she asked herself why fate was so cruel to 
some and so kind to others, and what she had done 
to deserve such a fate. 

Marie-des-Anges d’Etchegorry, without being ab- 
solutely pretty, possessed all the charm of her age, 
and everybody liked her. She was as tall and slim 
as a lily, with beautiful, fine, soft fair hair, eyes 
of a dark, undecided colour, which reminded one of 
those springs in the depths of the forests in which 
a ray of the sun is but rarely reflected — mirrors 
which changed now to violet, then to the colour of 
leaves, but most frequently of a velvety blackness 
— and her whole being exhaled a freshness of 
childhood, and something that could not be de- 
scribed, but which was pleasant, wholesome, and 
frank. 

She lived on through a long course of years, 
growing old, faithful to the man who might have 


96 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

given her his name, honourable, having resisted 
temptations and snares, worthy of the motto which 
used to be engraved on the tombs of Roman matrons 
before the Caesars : “ She spun wool and stayed at 
home.” 

When she was just twenty-one Marie-des-Anges 
fell in love, and her beautiful, dark, restless eyes for 
the first time were lighted up with a look of dreamy 
happiness. For some one seemed to have noticed 
her; he waltzed with her more frequently than he 
did with the other girls, spoke to her in a low voice, 
lingered near her, and discomposed her so much 
that she blushed deeply as soon as she heard the 
sound of his voice. 

His name was Andre de Gedre; he had just re- 
turned from Senegal, where after several months of 
daily fighting in the desert he had won his sub-lieu- 
tenant’s epaulets. 

With his thin, sunburned face, looking awkward 
in his tight coat, in which his broad shoulders could 
not spread themselves comfortably, and in which 
his arms, which had formerly been used to swinging 
the sword, were cramped in their tight, sleeves, he 
looked like one of those pirates of old, who used to 
scour the seas, pillaging, killing, hanging their pris- 
oners to the yardarms, who were ready to engage 
a whole fleet, and who returned to port laden with 
booty, and occasionally with waifs and strays picked 
up at sea. 

He belonged to a race of buccaneers or of heroes, 
according to the breeze which swelled his sails and 
carried him North or South. Over head and ears 


THE OLD MAID 


97 


in debt, reduced to mortgaging problematical lega- 
cies, to gambling at casinos, and to mortgaging the 
few acres of land that he had remaining at much 
less than their value, he nevertheless managed to 
make a pretty good figure in his hand-to-mouth 
existence. He never gave in, never showed the 
blows that he had received, and waited for the last 
struggle in a state of blissful inactivity, while he 
sought for renewed strength and philosophy from 
the caresses of women. 

Marie-des-Anges seemed to him to be a toy which 
he could do with as he liked. She had the flavour 
of unripe fruit; left to herself, and sentimental as 
she was, she would only offer a very brief resistance 
to his attacks, and would soon yield to his will, and 
when he was tired of her and threw her off, she 
would bow to the inevitable and would not worry 
him with violent scenes nor stand in his way, with 
threats on her lips. And so he was kind and used 
to wheedle her, and by degrees enveloped her in 
the meshes of a net, which continually hemmed her 
in closer and closer. He gained entire possession of 
her heart and confidence, and, without expressing 
any wish or making any promises, managed so to 
establish his influence over her that she did noth- 
ing but what he wished. 

Long before Monsieur de Gedre had addressed 
any passionate words to her, or any avowal which 
immediately introduces warmth and danger into a 
flirtation, Marie-des-Anges had betrayed herself 
with the candour of a little girl who does not think 
she is doing any wrong, and cannot hide what she 


9 8 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


thinks, what she is dreaming about, or the tender- 
ness which lies hidden at the bottom of her heart, 
and she no longer felt that horror of life which had 
formerly tortured her. She no longer felt herself 
alone as she had done formerly — so alone, so lost, 
even among her own people, that everything had 
become indifferent to her. 

It was very pleasant and soothing to be in love 
and to think that she was loved, to have a secret 
understanding with another heart, to imagine that 
he was thinking of her at the same time that she 
was thinking of him, to shelter herself timidly under 
his protection, to feel more unhappy each time she 
left him, and to experience greater happiness every 
time they met. 

She wrote him long letters which she did not 
venture to send him when they were written, for she 
was timid and feared that he would make fun of 
them, and she sang the whole day long like a lark in 
the sunlight, so that Monsieur Etchegorry scarcely 
recognized her any longer. 

Soon they made appointments together in some 
secluded spot, meeting for a few minutes in the 
aisles of the cathedral and behind the ramparts or 
on the promenade of the Allees-Marines, which was 
always dark on account of the dense foliage. 

And at last, one evening in June, when the sky 
was so studded with stars that it might have been 
taken for a triumphal route of some sovereign, 
strewn with precious stones and rare flowers, Mon- 
sieur de Gedre went into the large neglected garden. 

Marie-des-Anges was waiting for him in a som- 


THE OLD MAID 


99 


bre walk, with elms on either side, and listening 
for the least noise, looking at the closed windows 
of the house, and nearly fainting as much from 
fear as from happiness. They spoke in a low voice. 
She was close to him, and he must have heard the 
beating of her heart into which he had cast the first 
seeds of love, and he put his arms round her and 
clasped her gently, as if she had been some little 
bird that he was afraid of hurting, but which he did 
not wish to allow to escape. 

She no longer knew what she was doing, but was 
in a state of entire, intense, supreme happiness. She 
was cold and hot by turns and leaned her head in- 
stinctively but very lightly against Andre’s shoul- 
der. He kissed her hair, touched her forehead with 
his lips, and at last pressed them to her own. The 
girl remained inert and motionless, her eyes full of 
tears. 

- He came to see her nearly every evening for two 
months. She had not the courage to repel him and 
to speak to him seriously of the future, and could 
not understand why he had not yet asked her father 
for her hand, and had not fulfilled his former prom- 
ises, until one Sunday, as she was coming from 
high mass, walking on before her cousins, Marie- 
des-Anges heard the following words from a group 
in which Andre was standing, and he was the 
speaker : “ Oh ! no,” he said, “ you are altogether 
mistaken; I should never do anything so foolish. 
. . . One does not marry a girl without a penny; 
one only amuses himself.” 

The unhappy girl mastered her feelings, went 


100 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


down the steps of the porch quite steadily, but feel- 
ing utterly crushed as if by the news of some ter- 
rible disaster, and joined the servant who was wait- 
ing for her to accompany her back to Boucau. The 
effects of what she had heard caused her a serious 
illness, and for some time she hovered between life 
and death, consumed and wasted by a violent fever ; 
and when after a fortnight’s suffering she became 
convalescent, and looked at herself in the glass, she 
recoiled, as if she were face to face with an appari- 
tion, for there was nothing left of her former self. 

Her eyes were dull, her cheeks pale and hollow, 
and there were white streaks in her silky, light hair. 
Why had she not succumbed to her illness? Why 
had destiny reserved her for such a trial, and only 
aggravated her unhappy lot, that of disappointed 
hopes? But when that rebellious feeling was over 
she accepted her cross, fell into a condition of ardent 
devotion, and became crystallized as in the torpor 
of an old woman, and tried with all her might to 
rid her memory of any recollections she might have 
cherished in it, and to put a thick black veil between 
herself and the past. 

She never walked in the garden now and never 
went to Bayonne, and she would have liked to choke 
herself and to beat herself, when, in spite of her 
efforts and of her will, she remembered her lost 
happiness, and when some sensual feeling and a 
longing for past pleasures awoke in her mind. 

This condition lasted for four years and finished 
her, and altogether destroyed her good looks. She 
now had the figure and the appearance of an old 


THE OLD MAID 


101 


maid, when her father suddenly died, just as he 
was going to sit down to dinner. When the lawyer, 
who was summoned immediately, had ransacked the 
cupboards and drawers, he discovered a mass of 
securities, of banknotes, and of gold, which Comte 
d’Etchegorry, who was eaten up with avarice, had 
amassed eagerly and hidden away, and it was found 
that Mademoiselle Marie-des-Anges, who was his 
sole heiress, possessed an income of fifty thousand 
francs. 

She received the news without any emotion, for of 
what use was such a fortune to her now, and what 
should she do with it ? Her eyes, alas ! had been 
too much opened by all the tears that had fallen 
from them for her to delude herself with visionary 
hopes, and her heart had been too cruelly wounded 
to warm itself by lying illusions. She was seized 
by melancholy when she thought that in future she 
would be coveted, she who had been kept at arm’s 
length, as if she had been a leper; that men would 
come after her money with odious impatience ; that 
now that she was worn out and ugly, tired of every- 
thing and everybody, she would most certainly have 
plenty of suitors to refuse, and that, perhaps, he 
would come back to her, attracted by that amount of 
money, like a hawk hovering over its prey, that he 
would try to rekindle the dead embers, to revive 
some spark in them, and to obtain pardon for his 
cowardice. 

Oh, with what bitter pleasure she could have 
thrown those millions into the road to the ragged 
beggars, or scattered them about like manna to all 


102 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


who were suffering and dying of hunger, and who 
had neither roof nor hearth! She naturally soon 
became the target at which every one aimed, the 
goal for which all those who had formerly disdained 
her most now eagerly tried. 

It was not long before Monsieur de Gedre was 
in the ranks of her suitors, as she had foreseen, and 
caused her that last heartburning of seeing him 
humble, kneeling at her feet, acting a comedy, try- 
ing every means of overcoming her resistance, and 
to regain possession of that heart which was closed 
against him after having been entirely his, in all its 
adorable virginity. 

And Marie-des-Anges had loved him so deeply 
that his letters in which he recalled the past and 
stirred up all the recollections of their love, their 
kisses, and their dreams softened her in spite of 
herself, and came across her profound, incurable 
sadness like a factitious light, the reflection of a 
bonfire, which from a distance illuminates a prison 
cell for a moment. 

He was poor himself, and had not wished, so he 
said, to drag her into his life of privation and shifts, 
and she thought to herself that perhaps he had been 
right; and thus sensibly, like a mother or an elder 
sister, who has become indulgent and wishes to 
close her eyes and her ears against everything, to 
forgive again, to forgive always, she excused him 
and tried to remember nothing but those months of 
tenderness and of ecstasy, those months of happi- 
ness, and that he had been the first, the only man 
who, in the course of her unhappy, wasted life, had 


THE OLD MAID 


103 


given her a moment’s contentment, had caused her 
to dream, and had made her happy, youthful, and 
loving. 

He had shown himself kind to her, and she would 
be so a hundredfold toward him; and so she grew 
happy again, saying to herself that she would be his 
benefactress, that even with his hard heart he could 
not without some feelings of gratitude and emotion 
accept this sacrifice from a woman, who, like so 
many others, might have returned him evil for evil, 
but who preferred to be kind and considerate, after 
having been in love with him. 

And that resolution transfigured her, restored to 
her, temporarily, something of her youth, which had 
so soon fled away, and, poor, heroic saint among 
all the saints, she took refuge in a Carmelite con- 
vent, so as to escape from this returning temptation, 
and to bequeath everything of which she could law- 
fully dispose to Monsieur de Gedre. 


THE JENNET 


T HE day after General Daumont de Croisailles 
held a review he was sure to receive a pack- 
age of notes from women. 

Some were scribbled on paper with a love emblem 
at the top, as if from some sentimental milliner; 
others were ardent, as if saturated with curry. 

Among them were some which evidently came 
from a woman of the world, who was tired of her 
monotonous life, had lost her head, and let her pen 
run on, without exactly knowing what she was writ- 
ing, with those mistakes in spelling here and there 
which seemed to indicate the disordered beating of 
her heart. 

The general certainly looked magnificent on 
horseback. There was something of the fighter, 
something bold and defiant about him, a valiant 
look, as our grandmothers used to say, when they 
threw themselves into the arms of the conquerors, 
in the intervals of a campaign, though these same 
conquerors had loud, rough voices, even when they 
were making love, from being obliged to raise them 
above the noise of the firing, and used violent ges- 
tures, as if they were swinging their swords and 
issuing orders, and they did not waste time over 
useless refinements and in squandering the precious 


THE JENNET 


105 


hours, which were counted so avariciously, in minor 
caresses. 

As soon as he appeared sitting erect in the sad- 
dle, sword in hand, preceded by dragoons and a lit- 
tle ahead of his staff, amid the clatter of hoofs and 
jingling of scabbards and bridles and the waving 
plumes and uniforms glittering in the sun, his 
cocked hat with the black plumes slightly tilted to 
one side, the surging crowd cheered him as if he 
had been some popular minister, whose arrival had 
been announced beforehand. 

That tumult of strident voices that resounded 
from one end of the great square to the other, and 
was prolonged like the sound of the rising tide beat- 
ing against the shore; that rattle of rifles, and the 
sound of the music that alternated with blasts of 
the trumpets all along the line, made the general’s 
heart swell with unspeakable pride. 

He posed in spite of himself, and thought of 
nothing but ostentation and adulation. He con- 
tinually touched his horse with the spur and wor- 
ried it, so as to make it appear restive, and to 
prance and rear, to champ its bit, and to cover itself 
with foam ; and then he would continue his inspec- 
tion, galloping from regiment to regiment with a 
satisfied smile, while the good old infantry captains, 
sitting on their thin Arab horses, their toes well 
turned out, said to one another: 

“ I should not like to have to ride a confounded 
restive brute like that ! ” 

But the general’s aide-de-camp, little Jacques de 
Montboron, could easily have reassured them, for 


io6 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


he knew those famous thoroughbreds, as he had had 
to break them in, and had received a thousand tri- 
fling instructions about them. 

They were generally more or less spavined brutes 
which he had bought at auction for a nominal sum, 
and so quiet and well in hand that they might have 
been held with a silk thread, but they were well 
made, with bright eyes and coats that glistened like 
satin. They seemed to know their part, and stepped 
out, pranced and reared, and made way for them- 
selves, as if they had just come out of the riding- 
school at Saumur. 

That was his daily task, his obligatory service. 

He broke them in, one after the other, and trans- 
formed them into veritable mechanical horses, ac- 
customed them to bear the noise of trumpets and 
drums, and of musketry, without starting, tired 
them out by long rides the evening before every 
review, and bit his lips to prevent himself from 
laughing when people declared that General Dau- 
mont de Croisailles was a splendid horseman, who 
really loved danger. 

A horseman! That was almost as true as his- 
tory! But the aide-de-camp discreetly kept up the 
illusion, outdid the others in flattery, and related 
unheard-of feats of the general’s horsemanship. 

And, after all, breaking in horses was not more 
irksome than carrying on a monotonous and dull 
correspondence about the buttons on the gaiters, or 
than thinking over projects of mobilization, or than 
going through accounts in which he lost himself as 
in a labyrinth. It was not in vain that, from the 


THE JENNET 


107 


very first day that he entered the military academy 
at Saint-Cyr, he had learned that sentence which 
begins the rules of the Department of the Interior : 

“ As discipline constitutes the principal strength 
of an army, it is very important for every superior 
to obtain absolute respect and instant obedience 
from his inferiors. ,, 

He never rebelled, but accustomed himself to be- 
come a sort of Monsieur Loyal, spoke to his chief in 
the most obsequious manner, and counted on being 
promoted over the heads of his fellow officers. 

General Daumont de Croisailles was not married 
and did not intend to disturb the tranquillity of his 
bachelor life as long as he lived, for he loved all 
women, whether they were dark, fair, or red-haired, 
too devotedly to love only one, who would grow old 
and worry him with useless complaints. 

He was gallant, as men used to be called in the 
good old days ; he kissed the hands of those women 
who refused him their lips, and as he did not wish 
to compromise his dignity and be the talk of the 
town, he had rented a small house just outside it. 

It was close to the canal in a quiet street with 
courtyards and shady gardens, and as nothing is 
less amusing than the racket of jealous husbands or 
the brawling of excited women who are disputing 
or raising their voices in lamentation, and as it is 
always necessary to foresee some unfortunate inci- 
dent or other, some unlucky mishap, some absurdly 
imprudent action, some forgotten love appointment, 
the house had five different doors. 

So discreet that he reassured even the most timid, 


io8 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and certainly not given to melancholy, he under- 
stood extremely well how to vary his kisses and 
his ways of proceeding; how to work on women’s 
feelings, and to overcome their scruples, to obtain 
a hold over them through their curiosity to learn 
something new, by the temptation of a comfortable, 
well-furnished, warm room, fragrant with flowers, 
where a little supper was awaiting them. 

Men mistrusted that ancient Lovelace as if he 
had been the plague, when they had sketched out 
some charming adventure for themselves ; for he 
always managed to discover their secret and outgen- 
eral them. 

To some women he held out the irresistible argu- 
ment that led astray Danae, that of gold; others 
were attracted by his uniform and military rank, 
and their pride was flattered at the thought of see- 
ing him at their feet. 

His pay, allowances, and his private income of 
fifteen thousand francs, all went in this way, like 
water that leaks from a cracked bottle. 

He was continually on the alert and looked out 
for intrigues with the acuteness of a detective, fol- 
lowed women about and had all the impudence and 
cleverness of the fast man who has made love for 
forty years without ever meaning anything serious, 
who knows all its lies, tricks, and illusions, and who 
can still do a march without halting on the road or 
requiring too much music to put him in proper trim. 
And in spite of his age and gray hairs, he could 
have given a sub-lieutenant points, and was very 
often loved for his own sake, which is the dream of 


THE JENNET IO9 

men who have passed forty and do not intend to 
give up the game just yet. 

There were a dozen or more women whom he 
had not captivated, however, and one of these was 
Jacques de Montboron’s sweetheart. She was a lit- 
tle marvel, that Madame Courtade, whom the cap- 
tain had met in an ecclesiastical warehouse in the 
Faubourg Saint-Exupere, and she was not yet 
twenty. They had begun by smiling at each other, 
and by exchanging those long looks when they met 
which seemed to ask for charity. 

Montboron used to pass in front of the shop at 
the same hours, and stop for a moment with the 
appearance of a lounger who was loitering about 
the streets, but presently her supple figure would 
appear, pink and fair, shedding the brightness of 
youth and almost childhood around her, while her 
looks showed that she was delighted at the gallant 
incident which dispelled the monotony and weari- 
ness of her life for a time, and gave rise to vague 
but delightful hopes. 

Was love, that love which she had so constantly 
invoked, really knocking at her door at last, and 
taking pity on her unhappy isolation? Did that 
officer whom she met whenever she went out, when 
coming out of church, or when out for a walk in the 
evening — as if he had been watching for her — who 
said so many delightful things to her with his fasci- 
nating eyes, really love her as she wished to be 
loved, or was he merely amusing himself at that 
game, because he had nothing better to do in their 
quiet little town? 


IIO 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


But in a short time he wrote to her and she 
replied to him, and at last they managed to meet in 
secret, to make appointments, and to talk together. 

She knew all the cunning tricks of a simple girl, 
who has tasted the most delicious of sweets with 
the tip of her tongue, and acting in concert, and giv- 
ing each other the word, so that there might be no 
awkward mistake, they managed to make the hus- 
band their unwitting accomplice, without his having 
the least idea of what was going on. 

Courtade was an excellent fellow, who saw no 
further than the tip of his nose, incapable of rebel- 
ling, flabby, fat, steeped in devotion, and thinking 
too much about heaven to see what a plot was being 
hatched against him in our unhappy vale of tears, 
as the Psalmist calls it. 

In the good old days of confederacies, he would 
have made an excellent chief of a corporation ; he 
loved his wife more as a father than a husband, 
believing that at his age a man ought no longer to 
think of such trifles, and that, after all, the only real 
happiness in life was to keep a good table and to 
have a good digestion; and so he ate like four 
canons, and drank in proportion. 

Only once during his whole life had he shown 
anything like energy — but he used to relate that 
occurrence with all the pride of a conqueror recall- 
ing his most heroic battle — and that was on the 
evening when he refused to allow the bishop to take 
his cook away, quite regardless of any of the con- 
sequences of such a daring deed. 

In a few weeks the captain became his regular 


THE JENNET 


III 


table companion and his best friend. He had be- 
gun by telling Courtade in a boastful manner that, 
in order to keep a vow that he had made to St. 
George during the charge up the slope at Yron, dur- 
ing the battle of Gravelotte, he wished to send two 
censers and a sanctuary lamp to his village church. 

Courtade did his utmost, and all the more read- 
ily as this unexpected customer did not appear to 
pay any regard to money. He sent for several gold- 
smiths, and showed Montboron models of all kinds ; 
the latter hesitated, however, and did not seem able 
to make up his mind, and discussed the subject, de- 
signed ornaments himself, gained time, and thus 
managed to spend several hours every day in the 
shop. 

In fact, he was quite at home in the place, shook 
hands with Courtade, called him “ my dear fellow,” 
and did not wince when Courtade took his arm 
familiarly before other people and introduced him 
to his customers as, “ My excellent friend, the Mar- 
quis de Montboron.” He could go in and out of the 
house -as he pleased, whether the husband was at 
home or not. 

The censers and the lamp were sent in due course 
to Montboron’s chateau at Pacy-sur-Romanche (in 
Normandy), and when the package was undone it 
caused the greatest surprise to Jacques’s mother, 
who was more accustomed to receiving requests for 
money from her son than ecclesiastical objects. 

Suddenly, however, without rhyme or reason, lit- 
tle Madame Courtade became insupportable and 
enigmatical. Her husband could not understand it 


112 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


at all, and grew uneasy and continually consulted 
his friend, the captain. 

Etienette’s character seemed to have completely 
changed ; she found fifty pretexts for deserting the 
shop, for coming in late, for avoiding tete-a-tetes, 
in which people come to explanations and mutually 
become irritated, though such matters usually end 
in a reconciliation, amid a torrent of kisses. 

She disappeared for days at a time, and soon 
Montboron, who was not fitted to play the part of 
a Sganarelle, either by age or temperament, became 
convinced that his lady love was making a fool of 
him, that she was flirting with the general, and as 
he was as jealous as an Andalusian, and felt a hor- 
ror of that kind of pleasantry, he swore that he 
would make his rival pay a hundredfold for the 
trick which he had played him. 

The Fourteenth of July was approaching, when 
there was to be a grand parade of the whole garri- 
son on the large parade ground; and all along the 
paling which shut off the spectators from the sol- 
diers itinerant dealers had put up their stalls, and 
there were mountebanks’ and clairvoyants’ booths, 
menageries, and a large circus, which had gone 
through the town in caravans, with a great noise of 
trumpets and of drums. 

The general had given his aide-de-camp instruc- 
tions beforehand, for he was more anxious than ever 
to surprise people, and to have a horse like an eques- 
trian model, an animal which should outdo that 
famous black horse of General Boulanger’s, about 
which the Parisian loungers had talked so much, and 


THE JENNET 


113 


he told Montboron not to mind what the price was, 
as long as he found him a suitable steed. 

When the captain, a few days before the review, 
brought him a chestnut jennet with a long tail and 
flowing mane, which would not keep quiet for five 
seconds, but kept on shaking its head, had unusual 
action, answered the slightest touch of the leg, and 
stepped out as if it knew no other motion, General 
Daumont de Croisailles showered compliments upon 
him, and assured him that he knew few officers who 
possessed his intelligence and his value, and that he 
should not forget him when the time came to recom- 
mend him for promotion. 

Not a muscle of the Marquis de Montboron’s face 
moved, and when the day of the review arrived, he 
was at his post on the staff that followed the gen- 
eral, who sat as upright as a dart in the saddle, 
and looked at the crowd to see whether he could not 
recognize some old or new female acquaintance, 
while his horse pranced and plunged. 

He rode on to the review ground, amid the in- 
creasing noise of applause, with a smile upon his 
lips, when, suddenly, at the moment that he galloped 
up into the large square formed by the troops drawn 
up in a line, the band of the Fifty-third Regiment 
struck up a quick march, and, as if obeying a pre- 
concerted signal, the jennet began to turn round, 
and to accelerate its speed, in spite of the furious 
tugs at the bridle which the rider gave. 

The horse performed beautifully, followed the 
rhythm of the music, and appeared to be acting 
under some invisible impulse, and the general had 


1 14 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

such a comical look on his face, he looked so dis- 
concerted, rolled his eyes, and seemed to be the prey 
to such terrible exasperation, that he might have 
been taken for some character in a pantomime, while 
his staff followed him without being able to com- 
prehend this new whim of his. 

The soldiers presented arms, the music continued, 
though the performers were much astonished at this 
interminable ride. 

The general at last became out of breath, and 
could scarcely keep in the saddle, and the women, 
in the crowded ranks of the spectators, gave pro- 
longed, nervous laughs, which made the old roue's 
ears tingle with annoyance. 

The horse did not stop until the music ceased, 
and then it knelt down with bent head and put its 
nose to the ground. 

It nearly gave General de Croisailles an attack 
of the jaundice, especially when he found out that 
it was his aide-de-camp’s tit for tat, and that the 
horse came from a circus which was giving per- 
formances in the town. And what irritated him all 
the more was that he could not even set it down 
against Montboron and have him sent to some ter- 
rible out-of-the-way hole, for the captain sent in his 
resignation, wisely considering that sooner or later 
he should have to pay the cost of that little trick, 
and that the chances were that he should not get 
any further promotion, but remain stationary, like 
a cab which some swindler leaves standing for hours 
at one end of an arcade, while he makes his escape 
at the other end. 


THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES 


M onsieur pierre agenor de varg- 

NES, the examining magistrate, the per- 
sonification of dignity, sedateness, and cor- 
rectness, was anything but a practical joker. Even 
in his wildest dreams he could never have perpe- 
trated anything resembling a practical joke. It will 
thus be readily understood that a cold shiver passed 
through me when Monsieur Pierre Agenor de 
Vargnes did me the honor of sending a lady to call 
on me. 

About eight o’clock one morning last winter, as 
he was leaving the house to go to the Palais de Jus- 
tice, his footman handed him a card, on which was 
printed : 


“ Doctor James Ferdinand, 

“Member of the Academy of Medicine, 

“ Port-au-Prince, 

“ Chevalier of the Legion of Honour ’’ 

At the bottom of the card was written in pencil : 
“ From Lady Frogere.” 

Monsieur de Vargnes knew the lady very well. 
She was a very agreeable Creole from Hayti, whom 
he had met in many drawing-rooms; but, on the 


II 6 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

other hand, though the doctor’s name did not 
awaken any recollections in him, his quality and 
titles alone required that he should grant him an 
interview, however short it might be. Therefore, 
although he was in a hurry to go out, Monsieur de 
Vargnes told the footman to show in his early vis- 
itor, but to tell him beforehand that his master was 
much pressed for time, as he had to go to the law 
courts. 

When the doctor came in, in spite of his usual 
imperturbability, Monsieur de Vargnes could not 
restrain a movement of surprise, for the doctor pre- 
sented that strange anomaly of being a negro of the 
purest, blackest type, with the eyes of a white man, 
of a man of the North, with pale, cold, clear, blue 
eyes ; and his surprise increased when, after a few 
words of excuse for his untimely visit, he added, 
with an enigmatical smile: 

“ My eyes surprise you, do they not ? I was sure 
that they would, and, to tell you the truth, I came 
here in order that you might look at them well, and 
never forget them.” 

His smile, and his words even more than his 
smile, seemed to be those of a madman. He spoke 
very softly, with that childish, lisping tone which is 
peculiar to negroes, and his mysterious, almost men- 
acing words, therefore, sounded all the more as if 
they were uttered at random by an insane man. But 
his looks, the looks of those pale, cold, clear, blue 
eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They 
clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as 
irony, and, above all, implacable ferocity, and their 


THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES 1 17 

glance was like a gleam of lightning which one 
could never forget. 

“ I have seen,” Monsieur de Vargnes used to 
say when speaking about it, “ the looks of many 
murderers, but in none of them have I ever observed 
such a depth of crime and of impudent security in 
crime.” 

And this impression was so strong that Monsieur 
de Vargnes thought that he was the victim of some 
hallucination, especially as when he spoke about his 
eyes, the doctor continued with a smile, and in his 
most childish accents : “ Of course, Monsieur, you 
cannot understand what I am saying to you, and I 
must beg your pardon. To-morrow you will receive 
a letter which will explain it all to you, but, first 
of all, it was necessary that I should let you have a 
good, careful look at my eyes, my eyes, which are 
myself, my only and true self, as you will see.” 

With these words and with a polite bow, the doc- 
tor went out, leaving Monsieur de Vargnes ex- 
tremely surprised, and a prey to doubt, as he said 
to himself: 

“ Is he merely a madman ? His fierce expression 
and the criminal depth of his looks are perhaps 
caused merely by the extraordinary contrast be- 
tween his fierce looks and his pale eyes.” 

And, absorbed in these thoughts, Monsieur de 
Vargnes unfortunately allowed several minutes to 
elapse, and then he thought to himself suddenly: 

“No, I am not the sport of any hallucination, 
and this is no case of optical delusion. This man 
is evidently some terrible criminal, and I have alto- 


Il8 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

gether failed in my duty in not arresting him myself 
at once, though illegally, even at the risk of my 
life.” 

The judge ran downstairs in pursuit of the doc- 
tor, but it was too late; he had disappeared. In 
the afternoon he called on Madame Frogere to ask 
her whether she could tell him anything about the 
matter. She, however, had no acquaintance with the 
negro doctor, and was even able to assure the judge 
that he bore a fictitious title; for, as she was well 
acquainted with the upper classes in Hayti, she 
knew that the Academy of Medicine at Port-au- 
Prince had no doctor of that name among its mem- 
bers. As Monsieur de Vargnes persisted and gave 
a description of the doctor, especially mentioning 
his extraordinary eyes, Madame Frogere began to 
laugh, and said : 

“ You have certainly had to do with a practical 
joker, my dear Monsieur. The eyes which you have 
described are certainly those of a white man, and 
the individual must have been painted black.” 

On thinking it over Monsieur de Vargnes remem- 
bered that the doctor had nothing of the negro 
about him but his black skin, his woolly hair and 
beard, and his way of speaking, which could easily 
be affected, but nothing of the negro, not even the 
characteristic, undulating walk. Perhaps, after all, 
he was only a practical joker, and during the whole 
day Monsieur de Vargnes took refuge in that view, 
which rather wounded his dignity as a man of im- 
portance, but appeased his scruples as a magis- 
trate. 


THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES U9 

The next day he received the promised letter 
which was composed, as well as addressed, in type 
cut out of the newspapers. It was as follows : 

“Monsieur : Doctor James Ferdinand does not exist, 
but the man whose eyes you saw does, and you will cer- 
tainly recognize his eyes. This man has committed two 
crimes, for which he does not feel any remorse, but, as he 
is a psychologist, he is afraid of some day yielding to the 
irresistible temptation of confessing his crimes. You 
know better than any one (and that is your most powerful 
aid) with what imperious force criminals, especially intel- 
lectual ones, feel this temptation. That great poet, Edgar 
Poe, has written masterpieces on this subject, which express 
the truth exactly, but he has omitted to mention the last 
phenomenon, which I will tell you. Yes, I, a criminal, feel 
a terrible wish for somebody to know of my crimes, and 
when this desire is satisfied, and my secret has been re- 
vealed to a confidant, I shall be tranquil for the future, and 
be freed from this demon of perversity, which only tempts 
us once. Well ! Now that is accomplished. You shall 
have my secret. From the day that you recognize me by 
my eyes, you will try and find out what I am guilty of, 
and how I was guilty, and you will discover it, being a 
master of your profession, which, by the by, has procured 
you the honor of having been chosen by me to bear the 
weight of this secret, which now is shared by us, and by 
us two alone. I say, advisedly, by us two alone. You 
could not, as a matter of fact, prove the reality of this 
secret to any one, unless I were to confess it, and I defy 
you to obtain my public confession, as I have confessed it 
to you, and without danger to myself” 

Three months later Monsieur de Vargnes met 

Monsieur X at an evening party, and at first 

sight, and without the slightest hesitation, he rec- 
ognized in him those very pale, very cold, and very 
clear blue eyes, eyes which it was impossible to 
forget. 

The man himself remained perfectly impassive, 


120 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


so that Monsieur de Vargnes was forced to say to 
himself : , 

“ Probably I am the sport of a hallucination at 
this moment, or else there are two pairs of eyes in 
the world that are perfectly similar. And what 
eyes ! Can it be possible ? ” 

The magistrate instituted inquiries into the man’s 
life, and he discovered something that removed all 
his doubts. 

Five years previously Monsieur X had been 

a very poor but very brilliant medical student, who, 
although he never took his doctor’s degree, had 
already made himself remarkable by his bacteriolog- 
ical researches. 

A young and very rich widow had fallen in love 
with him and married him. She had one child by 
her first marriage, and in the space of six months, 
first the child and then the mother died of typhoid 

fever, and thus Monsieur X had inherited a 

large fortune, in due form, and without any possible 
dispute. Everybody said that he had attended to 
the two patients with the utmost devotion. Now, 
were these two deaths the two crimes mentioned in 
his letter? 

But then Monsieur X must have poisoned 

his two victims with the microbes of typhoid fever, 
which he had skillfully cultivated so as to make the 
disease incurable, even with the most devoted care 
and attention. Why not? 

“ Do you believe it ? ” I asked Monsieur de Varg- 
nes. 

“Absolutely,” he replied. “And the most ter- 


THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES 


121 


rible thing about it is that the villain is right when 
he defies me to force him to confess his crime pub- 
licly, for I see no means of obtaining a confession, 
none whatever. For a moment I thought of mag- 
netism, but who could magnetize that man with 
those pale, cold, bright eyes? With such eyes he 
would force the magnetist to denounce himself as 
the culprit.” 

Then he said, with a deep sigh : 

“ Ah ! Formerly there was something good about 
justice ! ” 

And when he saw my inquiring looks he added in 
a firm and perfectly convinced voice : 

“ Formerly, justice had torture at its command.” 

“ Upon my word,” I replied, with all an author’s 
unconscious and simple egotism, “ it is quite cer- 
tain that without the torture this strange tale will 
have no conclusion, and that is very fortunate, as 
far as regards the story I intended to make out 
of it.” 


THE ACCENT 


I T was a large house from whose white terraces 
overshadowed by vines one had a view of the 
sea. Tall pines formed a dome over the portico. 
There was a look of neglect and loneliness about 
the place, such as impresses one after a death or 
the departure of friends for other lands. 

The interior wore a strange look, with unpacked 
boxes serving for wardrobes, and piles of band- 
boxes. There was an array of worm-eaten arm- 
chairs, into which bits of velvet and silk, cut from 
old dresses, had been twisted anyhow to make seats, 
and along the walls there were rows of rusty nails 
which made one think of old portraits and of pic- 
tures full of associations, which had one by one 
been bought for a low price by some second-hand 
furniture dealer. 

The rooms were in disorder and furnished in a 
nondescript fashion, while velvets were hanging 
from the ceilings and in the corners, and seemed to 
show that as the servants were no longer paid ex- 
cept by hopes, they no longer did more than give 
them an accidental, careless touch with the broom 
occasionally. The drawing-room, which was ex- 
tremely large, was full of useless knickknacks, rub- 
bish which is put up for sale at stalls at watering- 


THE ACCENT 


123 


places, daubs — they could not be called paintings — 
of portraits and of flowers, and an old piano with 
yellow keys. 

Such is the home where she who had been called 
the handsome Madame de Maurillac was spending 
her monotonous existence, like some unfortunate 
doll which inconstant, childish hands have thrown 
into a corner in a loft, she who almost passed for a 
professional beauty, and whose coquetries, at least 
so the faithful ones of the party said, had been able 
to excite a fleeting and last spark of desire in the 
dull eyes of the Emperor. 

Like so many others, she and her husband had 
waited for his return from Elba, had discounted a 
fresh, immediate chance, had kept up boldly, and 
spent the remains of his fortune at that game of 
luxury. 

On the day when the illusion vanished and he was 
forced to awake from his dream, Monsieur de Mau- 
rillac, without considering that he was leaving his 
wife and daughter behind him almost penniless, but 
not being able to make up his mind to come down 
in the world, to vegetate, to fight his creditors, to 
accept the alms of some sinecure, poisoned himself, 
like a shopgirl who is forsaken by her contemptu- 
ous sweetheart. 

Madame de Maurillac did not mourn for him, 
and as this lamentable disaster made her interest- 
ing, and as she was assisted and supported by unex- 
pected acts of kindness, and had a good adviser in 
one of those old Parisian lawyers who would get 
anybody out of the most inextricable difficulties, she 


124 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


managed to save something from the wreck, and to 
keep a small income. Then, reassured and embol- 
dened, and resting her ultimate illusions and her 
chimerical hopes on her daughter’s radiant beauty, 
and preparing for that last game in which they 
would risk everything, and, perhaps, also hoping 
that she might herself marry again, the ancient flirt 
arranged a double existence. 

For months and months she disappeared from 
the world, and as a pretext for her isolation and 
for hiding herself in the country she alleged her 
daughter’s delicate health, and also the important 
interests she had to look after in the South of 
France. 

Her frivolous friends looked upon that as a great 
act of heroism, as something almost superhuman, 
and so courageous that incessant letters religiously 
kept her up in all the scandal and love adventures, 
in the falls as well as in the apotheoses of the capi- 
tal. 

The difficult struggle which Madame de Mau- 
rillac had to keep up in order to maintain her rank 
was really as fine as any of those campaigns in the 
twilight of glory, as those slow retreats where men 
only give way inch by inch and fight until the last 
cartridge is expended, until at last fresh troops 
arrive, reenforcements which bar the way to the 
enemy, and save the threatened flag. 

Broken in by the same discipline and haunted by 
the same dream, mother and daughter lived on 
almost nothing in the dull, dilapidated house which 
the peasants called the chateau, and economized like 


THE ACCENT 


125 


poor people who have only a few hundred francs a 
year to live on. But Fabienne de Maurillac devel- 
oped well in spite of everything, and grew up into 
a woman like some rare flower which is reared in a 
hot-house and preserved from the rough outside air. 

In order that she might not lose her Parisian 
accent by speaking too much with the servants, who 
had remained peasants under their livery, Madame 
de Maurillac, who had not been able to bring a 
lady’s maid with her, on account of the extra cost 
which her travelling expenses and wages would 
have entailed, and who, moreover, was afraid that 
some indiscretion might betray her manoeuvres and 
cover her with ridicule, made up her mind to wait 
on her daughter herself. And Fabienne talked with 
nobody but her, saw nobody but her, and was like a 
little novice in a convent. Nobody was allowed to 
speak to her, or to interrupt her walks in the large 
garden, or on the white terraces that were reflected 
in the blue water. 

As soon as the season for the country and the 
seaside came, however, they packed up their trunks 
and locked the doors of their house of exile. As 
they were not known, and by taking those terrible 
trains which stop at every station, and by which 
travellers arrive at their destination in the middle 
of the night, with the certainty that nobody will be 
waiting for you and see you get out of the car- 
riage, they travelled third class, so that they might 
have a few banknotes the more with which to make 
a show. 

A fortnight in Paris in the family house in Au- 


126 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


teuil, a fortnight in which to try on dresses and 
bonnets and to show themselves, and then Trouville, 
Aix or Biarritz, the whole show complete, with par- 
ties succeeding parties ; money was spent as if they 
did not know its value ; balls at the casinos, con- 
stant flirtations, compromising intimacies, and the 
kind of admirers who immediately surround two 
pretty women, one in the radiant beauty of her 
eighteen years, and the other in the brightness of 
that maturity which beautiful September days bring 
with them. 

Unfortunately, however, they had to do the same 
thing over again every year, and as if bad luck were 
continuing to follow them implacably, Madame de 
Maurillac and her daughter did not succeed in their 
endeavours, and did not manage during her usual 
absence from home to pick up some nice fellow who 
fell in love immediately, who took them seriously, 
and asked for Fabienne’s hand ; consequently, they 
were very unhappy. Their energies flagged, and 
their courage oozed away like water that escapes, 
drop by drop, through a crack in a jug. They grew 
low-spirited and no longer dared to be frank with 
each other and to exchange confidences and proj- 
ects. 

Fabienne, with her pale cheeks, her large eyes 
with blue circles round them, and her tight lips, 
looked like some captive princess who is tormented 
by constant ennui and troubled by evil suggestions, 
who dreams of flight and of escape from that prison 
where Fate holds her captive. 

One night when the sky was covered with heavy 


THE ACCENT 


127 


thunderclouds and the heat was most oppressive, 
Madame de Maurillac called her daughter, whose 
room was next to hers. After calling her loudly 
for some time in vain, she sprang out of bed in 
terror and almost broke open the door with her 
trembling hands. The room was empty and the 
pillows untouched. 

Almost distracted and foreseeing some irrepar- 
able misfortune, the poor woman ran all over the 
large house, and then rushed out into the garden, 
where the air vras heavy with the scent of flowers. 
She had the appearance of some wild animal that is 
being pursued by a pack of hounds, tried to pene- 
trate the darkness with her anxious looks, and 
gasped as if some one were holding her by the 
throat; but suddenly she staggered, uttered a pain- 
ful cry, and fell down in a fit. 

There, before her, in the shadow of the myrtle 
trees, Fabienne was sitting on the knees of a man — 
of the gardener — with both her arms round his neck 
and kissing him ardently, and as if to defy her 
mother and to show her how vain all her precau- 
tions and her vigilance had been, the girl was tell- 
ing her lover, in the country dialect and in a cooing 
and delightful voice, how she adored him, and that 
she would be his. . . . 

Madame de Maurillac is in a lunatic asylum, and 
Fabienne has married the gardener. 

What could she have done better? 


A USEFUL HOUSE 


T HROWING himself back in the great arm- 
chair, which he completely filled up, Royau- 
mont, that picker up of bits of pinchbeck, as 
they called him at the club, his fat sides shaking 
with laughter at the mere recollection of the funny 
story that he had promised to his friends, at last 
said : 

“ It is perfectly true Bordenave does not owe any 
one a penny and can go through any street he likes 
and publish those famous memoirs of sheriffs’ offi- 
cers which he has been writing for the last ten 
years, when he did not dare to go out, and in which 
he carefully brought out the characters and pecu- 
liarities of all those generous distributers of stamped 
paper with whom he had had dealings, their tricks 
and wiles, their weaknesses, their jokes, their man- 
ner of performing their duties, sometimes with bru- 
tal rudeness and at others with cunning good nature, 
now embarrassed and almost ashamed of their work, 
and again ironically jovial, as well as the artifices 
of their clerks to get a few crumbs from their em- 
ployer’s cake. The book will soon be published, 
and Machin, the vaudeville writer, has promised 
him a preface, so that it will be a most amusing 
work. You are surprised, eh? Confess that you 


A USEFUL HOUSE 


129 


are absolutely surprised, and I will lay you any bet 
you like that you will not guess how our excellent 
friend, whose existence is an inexplicable problem, 
has been able to settle with his creditors, and sud- 
denly produce the requisite amount.” 

“ Do get to the facts, confound it ! ” said Cap- 
tain Hardeur, who was growing tired of all this 
verbiage. 

“ All right, I will get to them as quickly as pos- 
sible,” Royaumont replied, throwing the stump of 
his cigar into the fire. “ I will clear my throat and 
begin. I suppose all of you know that two bet- 
ter friends than Bordenave and Quillanet do not 
exist; neither of them could do without the other, 
and they have ended by dressing alike, by having 
the same gestures, the same laugh, the same walk, 
and the same inflections of voice, so that one would 
think that some close bond united them, and that 
they had been brought up together from childhood. 
There is, however, this great difference between 
them, that Royaumont is completely ruined and that 
all that he possesses are bundles of mortgages, ridic- 
ulous parchments which attest his ancient race, and 
chimerical hopes of inheriting money some day, 
though these expectations are already heavily hy- 
pothecated. Consequently, he is always on the look- 
out for some fresh expedients for raising money, 
though he is superbly indifferent about everything, 
while Sebastian Quillanet, of the banking house of 
Quillanet Brothers, must have an income of eighty 
thousand francs a year, but is descended from an 
obscure labourer who managed to secure some of 


130 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the national property, then he became an army con- 
tractor, speculated on defeat as well as victory, and 
Quillanet does not know now what to do with his 
money. But the millionaire is timid, dull, and al- 
ways bored; the ruined spendthrift amuses him by 
his impertinent ways and his libertine jokes ; he 
prompts him when he is at a loss for an answer, ex- 
tricates him from his difficulties, serves as his guide 
in the great forests of Paris, which is strewn with 
so many pitfalls, and helps him to avoid those vul- 
gar adventures which socially ruin a man, no matter 
how well ballasted he may be. Then Bordenave 
points out to him what women would make suitable 
companions for him, who make a man noted, and 
have the effect of some rare and beautiful flower in 
his buttonhole. He is the confidant of his intrigues, 
his guest when he gives small, special entertain- 
ments, his daily familiar table companion, and the 
buffoon whose sly humour one stimulates and whose 
worst witticisms one tolerates.” 

“ Really, really,” the captain interrupted him, 
“ you have been going on for more than a quarter 
of an hour without saying anything.” 

So Royaumont shrugged his shoulders and con- 
tinued : 

“ Oh ! you can be very annoying when you please, 
my dear fellow! . . . Last year, when Bordenave 
was at daggers drawn with his people, who were 
deafening him with their recriminations, were wor- 
rying him and threatening him with a lot of annoy- 
ance, Quillanet got married. A marriage of reason, 
which apparently changed his habits and his tastes, 


A USEFUL HOUSE 


131 

more especially as the banker was at that time asso- 
ciated with a perfect little marvel of a woman, a 
Parisian jewel of unspeakable attractions and of 
bewitching delicacy, that adorable Suzette Marly, 
who is just like a pocket Venus, and who in some 
prior stage of her existence must have been Phryne 
or Lesbia. Of course, he did not give up seeing 
her, but as he was bound to take some judicious 
precautions, which are necessary for a man who is 
deceiving his wife, he rented and furnished a house 
with a courtyard in front and a garden at the back, 
which one might think had been built to shelter some 
amorous folly. It was the nest that he had dreamed 
of, warm, snug, elegant, the walls covered with silk 
hangings of subdued tints, large pier-glasses, alle- 
gorical pictures, and filled with luxurious low fur- 
niture that seemed to invite flirtations. Bordenave 
occupied the ground floor, and the first floor served 
as a shrine for the banker and a luxurious abode 
for the beautiful Suzette. Well, just a week ago, 
in order to hide the situation better, Bordenave 
asked Quillanet and some other friends to one of 
those luncheons which he understands so well how 
to order, such a delicious luncheon that before it 
was quite over every man and woman in this gay 
company were carrying on at a great rate, when 
the butler came in with an embarrassed look, and 
whispered something to him. 

“ ‘ Tell the gentleman that he has made a mistake, 
and ask him to leave me in peace/ Bordenave re- 
plied to him in an angry voice. The servant went 
out and returned immediately to say that the in- 


132 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


truder was using threats, that he refused to leave 
the house, and even spoke of having recourse to the 
commissary of police. Bordenave frowned, threw 
his table napkin down, upset two glasses, and stag- 
gered out with a red face, swearing and stammer- 
ing out : 

“ ‘ This is rather too much, and the fellow shall 
find out what going out of the window means, if 
he will not leave by the door.’ But in the ante- 
room he found himself face to face with a very cool, 
polite, impassive gentleman, who said very quietly 
to him : 

“ ‘ You are Comte Robert de Bordenave, I believe, 
Monsieur ? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes, Monsieur/ 

“ ‘ And the lease that you signed at the lawyer’s, 
Monsieur Albin Calvert, in the Rue du Faubourg- 
Poissonniere, is in your name, I believe ? ’ 

“ ‘ Certainly, Monsieur/ 

“ ‘ Then I regret extremely to have to tell you 
that if you are not in a position to pay the various 
accounts which different people have intrusted to 
me for collection here, I shall be obliged to seize all 
the furniture, pictures, plate, clothes, etc., which are 
here, in the presence of two witnesses who are 
waiting for me downstairs in the street.’ 

“ ‘ I suppose this is some joke, Monsieur?’ 

“ 4 It would be a very poor joke, Monsieur le 
Comte, and one which I should certainly not allow 
myself toward you ! ’ 

“ The situation was absolutely critical and ridicu- 
lous, the more so that in the dining-room the wo- 


A USEFUL HOUSE 


133 


men, who were slightly the worse for wine, were 
tapping the wine glasses with their spoons and call- 
ing for him. What could he do except to explain 
his misadventure to Quillanet, who became sobered 
immediately, and rather than see his shrine violated, 
his secret disclosed, and his pictures, ornaments, and 
furniture sold, gave a check in due form for the 
claim there and then, though with a very wry face? 
And in spite of this, some people will deny that men 
who are utterly broke often have a stroke of luck ! ” 


A RUPTURE 


I T is just as I tell you, my dear fellow, those two 
poor things whom we all of us envied, who 
looked like a couple of pigeons when they were 
billing and cooing, and were always spooning until 
they made themselves ridiculous, now hate each 
other just as much as they used to adore each other. 
It is a complete break, and one of those which can- 
not be mended as you can mend an old plate ! And 
all for a bit of nonsense, for something so funny 
that it ought to have brought them closer together 
and have made them laugh over it until they were 
ill. But how can a man explain himself when he 
is dying of jealousy, and when he keeps repeating 
to his terrified mistress: ‘You are lying! you are 
lying ! ’ When he shakes her, interrupts her while 
she is speaking, and says such hard things to her 
that at last she flies into a rage, has enough of it, 
becomes hard and mad, and thinks of nothing but 
of giving tit for tat and of paying him back in his 
own coin; does not care a straw about destroying 
his happiness, sends everything to the devil, and 
talks a lot of bosh, which she certainly does not 
believe. And then, because there is nothing so stu- 
pid and so obstinate in the whole world as lovers, 
neither he nor she will take the first step and own 


A RUPTURE 


135 


to having been in the wrong, and regret having 
gone too far ; but both wait and watch and do not 
even write a few lines about nothing, which would 
restore peace. No, they let day succeed day, and 
there are feverish and sleepless nights when the bed 
seems so hard, so cheerless and so large, and habits 
get weakened, and the fire of love that was still 
smouldering at the bottom of the heart evaporates in 
smoke. By degrees both find some reason for what 
they wished to do, they think themselves idiots to 
lose time which will never return, in that fashion, 
and so good-by, and there you are! That is how 
Josine Cadenette and that great idiot Servance sep- 
arated.” 

Lalie Spring had lighted a cigarette, and the blue 
smoke played about her fine, fair hair, which made 
one think of those last rays of the setting sun which 
pierce through the clouds at sunset. Resting her 
elbows on her knees, and with her chin in her hand 
in a dreamy attitude, she murmured: 

“ Sad, isn’t it? ” 

“ Bah ! ” I replied, “ at their age people easily 
console themselves, and everything begins over 
again, even love ! ” 

“ Well, Josine has already found somebody 
else ...” 

“ And did she tell you her story ? ” 

“ Of course she did, and it is such a joke ! You 
must know that Servance is one of those fellows 
one would wish to have when one has time to amuse 
one’s self, and so self-possessed that he would be 
capable of ruining all the seniors in a girls’ school, 


136 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and given to trifling as much as most men, so that 
Josine calls him ‘ perpetual motion.’ He would have 
liked to go on with his fun until the day of judg- 
ment, and seemed to fancy that beds were not made 
to sleep in at all; but she could not get used to 
being deprived of nearly all her rest, and it really 
made her ill. But as she wished to be as con- 
ciliatory as possible, and to love and to be loved as 
ardently as in the past, and also to sleep off the 
effects of her happiness peacefully, she rented a 
small room in a distant quarter, in a quiet, shady 
street, giving out that she had just come from the 
country, and put hardly any furniture into it except 
a good bed and a dressing-table. Then she in- 
vented an old aunt for the occasion, who was ill and 
always grumbling, and who suffered from heart dis- 
ease and lived in one of the suburbs; and so sev- 
eral times a week Josine took refuge in her sleeping 
place, and used to sleep late there, as if it had been 
some delicious abode where one forgets the whole 
world. Sometimes they forgot to call her at the 
proper time; she got back late, tired, with red and 
swollen eyelids, involved herself in lies, contradicted 
herself, and looked so much as if she had just come 
from the confessional, feeling horribly ashamed of 
herself, or as if she had hurried home from some 
assignation, that at last Servance worried himself 
about it, thought that he was being made a fool of, 
as so many of his comrades were, got into a rage, 
and made up his mind to set the matter straight, 
and to discover who this aunt of his mistress was 
who had so suddenly fallen from the skies. 


A RUPTURE 


137 


“ He was obliged to apply to an obliging agency, 
where they excited his jealousy, exasperated him 
day after day by making him believe that Josine 
Cadenette was making an absolute fool of him, had 
no more a sick aunt than she had any virtue, but 
that during the day she lived a fast life, and more 
than probably one of his own best friends was amus- 
ing himself at his expense. 

“ He was fool enough to believe these fellows, 
instead of going and watching Josine himself, put- 
ting his nose into the business, and going and 
knocking at the door of her room. He wanted to 
hear no more and would not listen to her. For a 
trifle, in spite of her tears, he would have turned the 
poor thing into the streets as if she had been a 
bundle of dirty linen. You may guess how she flew 
out at him and told him all sorts of things to annoy 
him; she let him believe he was not mistaken, that 
she had had enough of his affection, and that she 
was madly in love with another man. He grew 
very pale when she said that, looked at her furi- 
ously, clinched his teeth, and said in a hoarse 
voice : 

“ ‘ Tell me his name, tell me his nante ! ’ 

“ ‘ Oh !’ she said teasingly, ‘ you know him very 
well ! ’ and if I had not happened to have gone in I 
think there would have been a tragedy. . . . How 
stupid they are, and they were so happy and loved 
each other so ! . . . And now Josine is living with 
fat Schweinssohn, a low scoundrel who will live 
upon her, and Servance has taken up with Sophie 
Labisque, who might easily be his mother; you know 


i3» 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


her, that bundle of red and yellow, who has been 
at that kind of thing for eighteen years, and whom 
Laglandee has christened Scecula Sceculorum! ” 

“ By Jove ! I should rather think I did.” 


IN HIS SWEETHEARTS LIVERY 


A T the time the talented young Hungarian poet 
first made her acquaintance and discovered 
her histrionic ability, in 1847, she was a 
beautiful girl, though not of high moral character. 
She is now an intellectual, elegant, great lady and 
a celebrated actress. 

The slim, intense girl, with her bright brown hair 
and her large blue eyes, attracted the careless poet, 
and he loved her, and all that was good and noble 
in her nature blossomed forth in the sunshine of his 
poetic adoration. 

They lived in an attic in the old imperial city on 
the Danube, and she shared his poverty, his tri- 
umphs, and his pleasures, and would have become 
his true and faithful wife if the Hungarian revolu- 
tion had not torn him from her arms 

The poet became the soldier of freedom and fol- 
lowed the Magyar tricolor and the Honved drums, 
while she was carried away by the current of the 
movement in the capital, and might have been seen 
discharging her musket, like a brave Amazon, at 
the Croats, who were defending the town against 
Gorgey’s attacking battalions. 

But at last Hungary was subdued, and was gov- 
erned as if it had been a conquered country. 


140 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


It was said that the young poet had fallen at 
Temesvar, and the girl wept for him, and then mar- 
ried another man, which was nothing either new 
or extraordinary. Her name was now Frau von 
Kubinyi, but her married life was not happy; and 
one day it occurred to her that the poet had told 
her that she had a talent for the stage, and what- 
ever he said had always proved correct, so she sep- 
arated from her husband, studied a few parts, ap- 
peared on the stage, and the public, the critics, 
actors, and magazine writers were at her feet. 

She obtained a very profitable engagement, and 
her reputation increased with every part she played ; 
and before the end of a year after her first appear- 
ance she was the lioness of society. Everybody 
paid homage to her, and the wealthiest men tried 
to obtain her favor; but she remained cold and 
reserved until the general commanding the district, 
a handsome man of noble bearing and a gentleman 
in the highest sense of the word, approached her. 

Whether she was flattered at seeing this great 
man, before whom millions trembled and who had 
to decide over the life and death, the honour and 
happiness of so many thousands, enslaved by her 
soft curls, or whether her enigmatical heart for 
once really felt what true love was, suffice it to say 
that in a short time the general was under her com- 
mand and was surrounding her with the luxury of 
an Eastern queen. 

But just then a miracle occurred — the resurrec- 
tion of a dead man. Frau von Kubinyi was driving 
through the Corso in the general’s carriage ; she was 


IN HIS SWEETHEART’S LIVERY 141 

lying back negligently in the soft cushions and look- 
ing carelessly at the crowd on the pavement. Sud- 
denly she caught sight of a common Austrian sol- 
dier and screamed aloud. 

Nobody heard that cry which came from the 
depths of a woman’s heart; nobody saw how pale 
and how excited was that woman who usually 
seemed made of marble, not even the soldier who 
was the cause of her agitation. He was a Hun- 
garian poet who, like so many other Honveds, now 
wore the uniform of an Austrian soldier. 

Two days later, to his no small surprise, he was 
told to report to the general in command, as orderly, 
and when he presented himself to the adjutant he 
told him to go to Frau von Kubinyi’s and to await 
her orders. 

Our poet only knew her by report, but he hated 
and despised most cordially the beautiful woman 
whom report associated with the enemy of his 
country. He had no choice, however, but to 
obey. 

When he arrived at her house he seemed to be 
expected, for the porter knew his name, took him 
into his lodge, and without any further explanation 
told him immediately to put on the livery of his 
mistress, which was lying there ready for him. He 
ground his teeth, but resigned himself without a 
word to his wretched, though laughable, fate ; it was 
quite clear that the actress had some purpose in 
making the poet wear her livery. He tried to 
remember whether he could formerly have offended 
her by his notices as a theatrical critic, but before 


142 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


he could arrive at any conclusion he was told to go 
and show himself to Frau von Kubinyi. 

She evidently wished to enjoy his humiliation. 

He was shown into a small drawing-room, which 
was furnished with an amount of taste and mag- 
nificence such as he had never seen before, and 
was told to wait. But he had not been alone many 
minutes before the door curtains were parted and 
Frau von Kubinyi came in, calm but deadly pale, 
in a splendid robe of some Turkish material, and 
he recognized his former sweetheart. 

“ Irma ! ” he exclaimed. 

The cry came from his heart, and it afifected the 
woman who was surfeited with pleasure so greatly 
that the next moment her head was on the shoulder 
of the man whom she had believed to be dead. But 
only for a moment, and then he freed himself from 
her. 

“We are fated to meet again thus!” she began. 

“ Not through any fault of mine,” he replied, bit- 
terly. 

“ And not through mine, either,” she said quickly ; 
“ everybody thought that you were dead, and I 
wept for you; that is my justification.” 

“ You are really too kind,” he replied sarcastic- 
ally. “ How can you condescend to make any ex- 
cuses to me? I wear your livery, and you have to 
order and I obey; our relative positions are clear 
enough.” 

Frau von Kubinyi turned away to hide her tears. 

“ I did not intend to hurt your feelings,” he con- 
tinued ; “ hut I must confess that it would Inve been 


IN HIS SWEETHEART^ LIVERY -I43 

better for both of us if we had not met again. But 
what do you mean by making me wear your liv- 
ery? Is it not enough that I have been robbed of 
my happiness? Does it afford you any pleasure to 
humiliate me as well?” 

“ How can you think that ? ” the actress ex- 
claimed. “ Ever since I discovered your unhappy 
lot I have thought of nothing but the means of de- 
livering you from it, and until I succeed in doing 
this I can at least make it more bearable for you. ’ 

“ I understand,” the unhappy poet said, with a 
sneer. “ And in order to do this you have begged 
your present worshiper to turn me into a foot- 
man.” 

“ What a thing to say to me!” 

“ Can you find any other pleasure as a substitute ? 
You wish to punish me for having loved you, idol- 
ized you, I suppose ? ” the poet continued. “ So 
exactly like a woman! But I can perfectly well 
understand that the situation promises to have a 
fresh charm for you. . . 

Before he could finish what he was saying the 
actress quickly left the room; he could hear her 
sobbing, but he did not regret his words, and his 
contempt and hatred for her only increased, when 
he saw the extravagance and the princely luxury 
with which she was surrounded. But what was the 
use of his indignation? He was wearing her livery 
and he was obliged to wait upon her and to obey 
her, for she had the corporals at her command, and 
it really seemed as if he incurred the vengeance of 
the offended woman, as if she wished to make him 


144 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


feel her whole power, as if he were not to be spared 
the deepest humiliation. 

The general and three of Frau von Kubinyi’s 
friends, who were also on the stage — one a ballet 
dancer, and the two other actresses — had come to 
tea, and he was to wait on them. 

While tea was being prepared he heard them 
laughing in the next room and the blood rushed to 
his head. When the butler opened the door Frau 
von Kubinyi appeared on the general’s arm; she 
did not, however, look at her new footman, her for- 
mer lover, triumphantly or contemptuously, but she 
gave him a glance of the deepest commiseration. 

Could he, after all, have wronged her in his 
thoughts ? 

Hatred and love, contempt and jealousy were 
struggling in his breast, and when he had to fill the 
glasses the bottle shook in his hand. 

“ Is this the man ? ” the general said, looking at 
him closely. 

Frau von Kubinyi nodded. 

“ He was evidently not born for a footman,” the 
general added. 

“ And still less for a soldier,” the actress ob- 
served. 

These words fell heavily on the unfortunate 
poet’s heart, but she was evidently taking his part 
and trying to rescue him from his terrible position. 

Suspicion, however, once more gained the day. 

“ She is tired of all pleasure and satiated with 
enjoyment,” he said to himself; “ she requires ex- 
citement and it amuses her to see the man whom 


IN HIS SWEETHEART’S LIVERY 145 

she formerly loved, and who, as she knows, still 
loves her, tremble before her. And when she pleases 
she can see me tremble ; not for my life but for fear 
of the disgrace which she can inflict upon me at any 
moment if it should give her any pleasure.” 

But suddenly the actress gave him a look which 
was so sad and so imploring that he looked down in 
confusion. 

From that time he remained in her house with- 
out performing any duties and without receiving 
any orders from her ; in fact, he never saw her and 
did not venture to ask after her, and two months 
had passed in this way when the general unex- 
pectedly sent for him. He waited, with many others, 
in the anteroom, and when the general came back 
from parade he saw him and beckoned him to fol- 
low him, and as soon as they were alone he said : 

“ You are free, as you have been allowed to pur- 
chase your discharge.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” the poet stammered, “ how 
am I to ” 

“ That is already done,” the general replied. 
“ You are free.” 

“ How is it possible ? How can I thank your ex- 
cellency ? ” 

“ You owe me no thanks,” he replied; “ Frau von 
Kubinyi bought your release.” 

The poor poet’s heart seemed to stop; he could 
not speak nor even stammer a word, but with a low 
bow he rushed out and tore wildly through the 
streets until he reached the mansion of the woman 
whom he had so misunderstood, quite out of breath ; 


146 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


he must see her again and throw himself at her feet. 

“ Where are you going to ? ” the porter asked 
him. 

“ To Frau von Kubinyi’s.” 

“ She is not here.” 

“ Not here? ” 

“ She has gone away.” 

“ Gone away ? Where to ? ” 

“ She started for Paris two hours ago.” 


UGLY 


I N this blessed era of equality, mediocrity, of 
rectangular abomination, as Poe says, in this 
delightful age when every one tries to resemble 
every one else, so that it is impossible to distinguish 
the President of the Republic from a waiter; in 
these days, the forerunners of that future blissful 
time when everything in this world will be of a dull, 
neutral uniformity, in such an age one has the privi- 
lege, or, rather, it is one’s duty, to be ugly. 

He, however, assuredly exercised that privilege to 
the fullest extent, and he fulfilled that duty with the 
fiercest heroism, and to make matters worse, the 
mysterious irony of fate had caused him to be born 
with the name of Lebeau, while an ingenious god- 
father, the unconscious accomplice of the pranks of 
destiny, had given him the Christian name of An- 
tinoiis. 

Even among our contemporaries who were al- 
ready on the high road to the coming ideal of uni- 
versal ugliness, Antinoiis Lebeau was remarkable 
for his ugliness, and one might have said that he 
positively threw zeal, too much zeal, into the mat- 
ter, though he was not hideous like Mirabeau, who 
made people exclaim : “ Oh, the beautiful mon- 

ster!” 

Alas ! No. He was without any beauty, even 


148 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all, 
nothing more nor less ; in short, he was uglily ugly. 
He was not humpbacked nor knock-kneed nor pot- 
bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and 
his arms were neither too long nor too short, and 
yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about 
him, not only in painters’ eyes, but also in every- 
body’s, for nobody could meet him in the street 
without turning to look after , him and thinking : 
“ Good heavens ! what an object ! ” 

His hair was of no particular color, a light chest- 
nut mixed with yellow. There was not much of it, 
but still he was not absolutely bald, but quite bald 
enough to allow his butter-coloured pate to show. 
Butter-coloured ? Hardly ! The colour of margarine 
would be more applicable, and such pale marga- 
rine ! 

His face was also like margarine, but like adul- 
terated margarine. By the side of it his cranium, 
the colour of unadulterated margarine, looked al- 
most like butter in comparison. 

There was very little to say about his mouth ! 
Less than little; the sum total was — nothing. It 
was a chimerical mouth. 

But let us suppose that I have said nothing about 
him and replace this vain description by the useful 
formula: Impossible to describe. But you must 
not forget that Antinoiis Lebeau was ugly, that the 
fact impressed everybody as soon as they saw him, 
and that nobody remembered ever having seen an 
uglier person ; and let us add that as the climax of 
his misfortune he knew it. 


UGLY 


149 


From this you will see that he was not a fool; 
neither was he of a bad disposition ; but, of course, 
he was unhappy. An unhappy man thinks only of 
his wretchedness, and people take his nightcap for 
a fool’s cap, while, on the other hand, goodness is 
only esteemed when it is cheerful. Consequently 
Antinoiis Lebeau passed for a fool, and an ill-tem- 
pered fool, and he was not even pitied because he 
was so ugly ! 

He had only one pleasure in life, and that was 
to go and roam about the darkest streets on 
dark nights and to hear some unfortunate creature 
say : 

“ Come with me, you handsome dark man ! ” 

It was, alas! a furtive pleasure, and he knew 
that it was not true. For occasionally, when the 
woman was old or drunk and he profited by the in- 
vitation, as soon as they came under a street lamp 
they no longer murmured the fallacious handsome 
dark man; and when they saw him the old women 
grew still older, and the drunken women got sober. 
And more than one, although hardened against dis- 
gust and ready for all risks, said to him, and in 
spite of his liberal treatment: 

“ My little man, you are most confoundedly ugly, 
I must say.” 

At last, however, he renounced even that lament- 
able pleasure when he heard the still more lament- 
able words which a wretched woman could not help 
uttering when he accosted her: 

“ Well, he must be very hungry ! ” 

Alas ! He was a hungry, unhappy man ; hungry 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


150 

for love, for something that should resemble love, 
were it ever so little; he longed not to love like a 
pariah any more, not to be exiled and proscribed 
in his ugliness. And the ugliest, the most repug- 
nant woman would have appeared beautiful to him 
if she would only have consented not to think him 
ugly, or, at any rate, not to tell him so, and not to 
let him see that she felt horror at him on that ac- 
count. 

The consequence was that when he one day met 
a poor, blear-eyed creature with her face covered 
with scabs and bearing evident signs of alcoholism, 
with a drivelling mouth and ragged and filthy skirts, 
to whom he gave liberal alms, for which she kissed 
his hand, he took her home with him, had her 
dressed in clean clothes, and taken care of, made 
her his servant and then his housekeeper. Next he 
raised her to his own position, and, finally, of course, 
he married her. 

She was almost as ugly as he was! She really 
was; but only almost. Almost, but certainly not 
quite ; for she was hideous, and her hideousness had 
its charm and its beauty, no doubt; that something 
by which a woman can attract a man. And she had 
proved that by deceiving him, and she let him see 
it better still by leading astray another man. 

That other was actually uglier than Lebeau. 

He was certainly uglier, that collection of every 
physical and moral ugliness, that companion of beg- 
gars whom she had picked up among her former 
vagrant associates, that jailbird, that vagabond cov- 
ered with filth, with legs like a toad’s, with a mouth 


UGLY 


151 

like a lamprey, and a death’s head in which the nose 
had been replaced by two holes. 

“ And you have wronged me with a wretch like 
that,” the poor, deceived man said. “ And why, 
why, you wretch? Why, seeing that he is uglier 
than I am?” 

“Oh! no,” she exclaimed. “You may say what 
you like, that I am a dirty low creature, but do not 
say that he is uglier than you are.” 

And the unhappy man stood there, vanquished 
and overcome by her last words, which she uttered 
without understanding all the horror which he 
would feel at them. 

“ Because, you see, he has his own particular 
ugliness, while you are merely ugly like everybody 
else is.” 


VIRTUE IN THE BALLET 


W HEN the theatrical annalist discovers a true, 
honest heart behind the glamour of the 
stage he experiences a sensation of real 
pleasure. Of all the witches and semi-witches of 
that eternal Walpurgis night that represents the 
world, the ladies of the ballet have at all times and 
in all places been regarded as least like saints, al- 
though Hacklander repeatedly tried in his earlier 
novels to convince us that true virtue appears in 
tights and short petticoats, and is only to be found 
in ballet girls. Popular opinion does not bear out 
this theory, although here and there one finds a 
pearl in the dust and even in the dirt, as the follow- 
ing story will show : 

Whenever a new, youthful dancer appeared at 
the Vienna Opera House the habitues began to go 
after her, and did not rest until the fresh young 
rose had been plucked by some hand or other. For 
how could those young and pretty, sometimes even 
beautiful, girls, who, with every right to life, love, 
and pleasure, were poor and had to subsist on a very 
small salary, resist the seduction of the smell of 
flowers and of the flash of diamonds? And if one 
resisted it, it was love, some real, strong passion, 
that gave her the strength to do so. But if she was 


VIRTUE IN THE BALLET 


53 


then deserted she became only the more selfish and 
shameless. 

At the beginning of the winter season of 185 — 
the news’ was spread among the theatregoers that 
a girl of dazzling beauty was to appear in the ballet 
at the Court Theatre. No one had yet seen that 
much-discussed phenomenon, but report spread her 
name from mouth to mouth ; it was Satanella. The 
moment the bevy of supple figures in fluttering pet- 
ticoats sprang on the stage every opera glass in the 
boxes and stalls was directed toward them, and at 
the same instant the new dancer was discovered, 
although she timidly kept in the background. 

She was one of those girls who have the imprint 
of purity but at the same time present a splendid 
type of womanhood. She had the voluptuous form 
of Rubens’s second wife, whom they called, not in- 
appropriately, a Green Helen, and her head with 
its delicate nose, its small mouth,* and its dark in- 
quiring eyes, reminded people of the celebrated pic- 
ture of the Flemish Venus in the Belvedere in 
Vienna. 

She took the old guard of the Vienna Court The- 
atre by storm, and the very next morning a perfect 
shower of billets-doux , jewels, and bouquets fell 
into the poor ballet girl’s attic. For a moment she 
was dazzled by all this splendour, and looked at the 
gold bracelets, the brooches set with rubies and 
emeralds, and at the sparkling earrings, with flushed 
cheeks. But then an unspeakable terror of being 
lost and of sinking into degradation seized her, and 
she pushed the jewels away and was about to send 


154 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


them back. But, as is usual in such cases, her 
mother intervened in favour of ‘“the generous gen- 
tlemen/’ and so the jewels were accepted, though 
the notes which accompanied them were* not an- 
swered at present. A second and a third discharge 
of Cupid’s artillery followed, without making any 
impression on the girl; a great number of her ad- 
mirers fell off consequently, though some continued 
to send her presents and to assail her with love let- 
ters, and one had the courage to go still further. 

He was a wealthy banker who called on the 
mother of Henrietta, the fair-haired ballet girl, and 
then one evening, quite unexpectedly, on the girl 
herself. He by no means met with the reception 
which he had expected from the pretty girl in a 
faded cotton gown. Henrietta treated him with a 
certain amount of good-humoured respect, which 
had a much more unpleasant effect on him than that 
coldness and prudery which is so often synonymous 
with the coquetry and selfish speculation of a certain 
class of women. In spite of everything, however, he 
soon went to see her daily, and lavished his wealth 
on the beautiful dancer, although she asked for 
nothing, and he gave her no chance to refuse. The 
mother took pretty, small apartments for her daugh- 
ter and herself in the Karntnerstrasse and furnished 
them elegantly, hired a cook and housemaid, made 
an arrangement with a cabman, and clothed her 
daughter in silk, velvet, and valuable lace. 

Henrietta said nothing except once when she re- 
marked to her mother, in the presence of her ad- 
mirer : 


VIRTUE IN THE BALLET 


155 


“ Have you won a prize in the lottery? ” 

“ Of course I have,” her mother replied, with a 
laugh. 

The girl, however, had given her heart elsewhere, 
and quite contrary to all precedent, to a man whose 
very name she was ignorant of, and who sent her no 
diamonds, and not even any flowers. But he was 
young and good-looking, and stood so retiringly, 
and so evidently in love, at the small side door of 
the Opera House every night, when she got out of 
her antediluvian rickety cab, and also when she got 
into it again after the performance, that she could 
not help noticing him. Soon he began to follow her 
wherever she went, and once he summoned up 
courage to speak to her when she had been to see 
a friend in a remote suburb. He was very nervous, 
but all that he said seemed very clear and logical, 
and she did not hesitate for a moment to confess 
that she returned his love. 

“ You have made me the happiest, and at the 
same time the most wretched of men,” he said, after 
a pause. 

“ What do you mean ? ” she said innocently. 

“ Do you not belong to another man ? ” he asked 
her in a sad voice. 

She shook her abundant light curls. 

“ Up till now I have belonged to myself alone 
and I will prove it to you by requesting you to call 
upon me frequently and without restraint. Every 
one shall know that we are lovers. I am not 
ashamed of loving an honourable man, but I will 
not sell myself.” 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


I56 

“ But your splendid apartments and your 
dresses/’ her lover interposed shyly, “you cannot 
pay for them out of your salary.” 

“ My mother has won a large prize in the lottery 
or made a hit on the Stock Exchange.” And with 
these words the determined girl cut short all fur- 
ther explanations. 

That same evening the young man paid his first 
visit, to the horror of the girl’s mother, who was 
so interested in stocks, and he came again the next 
day, and nearly every day. Her mother’s reproaches 
were of no more avail than the furious looks of the 
stockholder, and when the latter one day asked for 
an explanation as to certain visits, the girl said 
proudly : 

“ That is very soon explained. He loves me and 
I love him, and I have promised to marry him.” 

He certainly did understand the explanation and 
disappeared, and with him the shower of gold 
ceased. 

The mother cried and the daughter laughed. “ I 
never gave the worn-out old rake any hopes, and 
what does it matter to me what bargain you made 
with him? I always thought that you had been 
lucky on the Stock Exchange. Now, however, we 
must seriously consider about giving up our apart- 
ments, and make up our minds to live as we did 
before.” 

“ Are you really capable of making such a sacri- 
fice for me as to renounce luxury and to share my 
poverty ? ” her lover said. 

“ Certainly I am ! Is not that a matter of course 


VIRTUE IN THE BALLET 


57 


when one loves ? ” the ballet girl replied, in surprise. 

“ Then let me inform you, my dear Henrietta,” 
he said, “ that I am not so poor as you think. I 
only wished to find out whether I could make myself 
loved for my own sake; I have done so. I am 
Count L , and though I am a minor and depend- 

ent on my parents, yet I have enough to be able to 
retain your pretty rooms for you, and to offer you 
if not a luxurious, at any rate a comfortable, ex- 
istence.” 

On hearing this, mama dried her tears imme- 
diately. Count L became the girl’s acknowl^ 

edged lover, and they passed the happiest hours to- 
gether. Unselfish as the girl was, she was yet such 
a thoroughly ingenuous Viennese that whenever she 
saw anything that took her fancy, whether it was 
a dress, a cloak, or one of those pretty little orna- 
ments for a side table, she used to express her ad- 
miration in such terms that Count L— — felt 
obliged to make her a present of the object in ques- 
tion. In this way he incurred enormous debts, 
which his father paid. At last, however, he in- 
quired into the cause of all this extravagance, and 
when he discovered it, he gave his son the choice of 
giving up the dancer or of relinquishing all claims 
on the paternal fortune. 

It was a sorrowful evening when Count L 

told Henrietta of his father’s determination. 

“ If I do not give you up I shall be able to do 
nothing for you,” he said at last, “ and I do not 
even know how I should manage to live myself, for 
my father is just the man to allow me to want, if I 


158 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


defy him. That, however, is a very secondary con- 
sideration ; but as a man of honour I cannot bind 
you, who have every right to luxury and enjoyment, 
and so I must set you at liberty from the moment 
that I cannot provide for you.” 

“ But I will not give you up,” Henrietta said 
proudly. 

The young Count shook his head sadly. 

“ Do you love me ? ” the ballet girl said quickly. 

“ More than my life.” 

“ Then we will not separate as long as I have 
anything,” she continued. 

And she would not give him up, and when his 

father actually turned Count L into the street 

she provided a home for both of them. He obtained 
a situation as a copyist clerk in a lawyer’s office, 
and she. sold her valuable dresses and jewels, and 
thus they lived for more than a year. 

The young man’s father did not appear to trouble 
his head about them, but nevertheless he knew 
everything that went on in their small home, and 
knew every article that the ballet girl sold ; until at 
last, softened by such love and strength of charac- 
ter, he himself made the first advances to a recon- 
ciliation with his son. 

And now Henrietta wears the diamonds which 
formerly belonged to the old Countess, and it is 
long since she was a ballet girl. She now sits by 
the side of her husband in a carriage bearing their 
coat-of-arms. 


AN HONEST IDEAL 


T HERE is one among my numerous friends in 
Vienna, an author, who has always amused 
me by his childish idealism. 

Not by his idealism from an abstract point of 
view, for in spite of my pessimism I am an absurd 
idealist, and because I am perfectly well aware of 
this I as a rule never laugh at people’s idealism, but 
his sort of idealism was really too funny. 

He was a serious man of great capabilities who 
only just fell short of being learned, with a clear, 
critical intellect; a man without any illusions about 
society, the State, literature, or anything else, and 
especially not about women; but yet he was the 
craziest optimist as soon as he got upon the subject 
of actresses, theatrical princesses, and heroines; he 
was one of those men who, like Hacklander, cannot 
discover the Ideal of Virtue anywhere except in a 
ballet girl. 

My friend was always in love with some actress 
or other; of course only platonically, and from 
preference with some girl of rising talent, whose 
literary knight he constituted himself, until the time 
came when her admirers laid something much more 
substantial than laurel wreaths at her feet ; then he 


i6o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


withdrew and sought for fresh talent which would 
allow itself to be patronized by him. 

He was never without the photograph of his 
ideal in his breast pocket, and when he was in a 
good temper he used to show me one or the other 
of them whom I had never seen, with a knowing 
smile, and once, when we were sitting in a cafe in 
the Prater, he took out a portrait without saying a 
word and laid it on the table before me. 

It was the portrait of a beautiful woman, but 
what struck me in it first of all was not the almost 
classic cut of her features but her white eyes. 

“ If she had not the black hair of a living woman 
I should take her for a statue,” I said. 

“ Certainly,” my friend replied ; “ for a statue of 
Venus, perhaps for the Venus of Milo herself.” 

“ Who is she?” 

“ A young actress.” 

“ That is a matter of course in your case ; what 
I meant was, what is her name ? ” 

My friend told me, and it was a name which is 
at present one of the best-known on the German 
stage, with which a number of mundane adventures 
are connected, as every Viennese knows, compared 
with which those of Venus herself were only in- 
nocent toying, but which I then heard for the first 
time. 

My idealist described her as a woman of the high- 
est talent, which I believed, and as an angel of purity 
— which I did not believe; on that particular occa- 
sion, however, I at any rate did not believe the con- 
trary. 


AN HONEST IDEAL l6l 

A few days later I was accidentally turning over 
the leaves of the portrait album of another intimate 
friend of mine, who was a thoroughly careless, 
somewhat dissolute Viennese, and I came across 
that strange female face with the dead eyes again. 

“ How did you come by the picture of this 
Venus ?” I asked him. 

“ Well, she certainly is a Venus,” he replied, “ but 
one of that cheap kind who are to be met with in 
the Graben, which is their ideal grove.” 

“ Impossible ! ” 

“ I give you my word of honour it is so.” 

I could say nothing more after that. So my in- 
tellectual friend’s new ideal, that woman of the 
highest dramatic talent, that wonderful woman with 
the white eyes, was a Venus of a very common type 
indeed ! 

But my friend was right in one respect. He had 
not deceived himself with regard to her wonderful 
dramatic gifts, and she very soon made a career for 
herself; for, from being a mute character on a su- 
burban stage, she rose in two years to be the leading 
actress at one of the principal theatres. 

My friend interested himself in her behalf with 
the manager, who was not blinded by any preju- 
dices. She acted in a rehearsal and pleased him; 
whereupon he sent her to star in the provinces, and 
my friend accompanied her and took care she was 
well advertised. 

She went on the boards as Schiller’s Marie Stu- 
art and achieved the most brilliant success, and be- 
fore she had finished her starring tour obtained an 


1 62 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


engagement at a large theatre in a Northern town, 
where her appearance was the signal for a tri- 
umphal success. 

Her reputation, that is her reputation as a most 
gifted actress, grew very high in less than a year, 
and the manager of the Court Theatre invited her 
to star at that house. 

She was received with some suspicion at first, but 
she soon overcame all prejudices and doubts; the 
applause grew more and more vehement at every 
act, and at the close of the performance her future 
was decided. She obtained a splendid engagement, 
and soon afterward became an actress at the Court 
Theatre. 

A well-known author wrote a racy novel of which 
she was the heroine ; one of the leading bankers and 
financiers was at her feet ; she was the most popular 
personage and the lioness of the capital; she had 
splendid apartments, and all her surroundings were 
of the most luxurious character. She had reached 
that height in her career at which my idealistic 
friend, who had constituted himself her literary 
knight, quietly took his leave of her, and went in 
search of fresh talent. 

But the beautiful woman with the dead eyes and 
the dead heart seemed to be destined to be the 
scourge of the idealists, quite against her will, for 
scarcely had one unfolded his wings and flown away 
from her than another fell out of the nest into her 
net. 

A very young student who was neither handsome 
nor of good family, and certainly not rich or even 


AN HONEST IDEAL 


163 


well off, but who was enthusiastic, intellectual, and 
impressionable, saw her as Marie Stuart, as the 
Maid of Orleans, the Lady with the Camellias, and 
most of the plays of the best French writers, for the 
manager was making experiments with her, and she 
was doing the same with her talents. 

The poor student was enraptured with the cele- 
brated actress, and at the same time conceived a 
passion for the woman which bordered on mad- 
ness. 

He saved up penny by penny, he nearly starved 
himself, only in order that he might be able to pay 
for a seat in the gallery whenever she acted, and be 
able to devour her with his eyes. He always got a 
seat in the front row, for he was always outside 
three hours before the doors opened so as to be one 
of the first to gain his Olympus, the seat of the the- 
atrical enthusiasts ; he grew pale and his heart beat 
violently when she appeared; he laughed when she 
laughed, shed tears when she wept, applauded her 
as if he had not been paid to do it, and yet she did 
not know him and was ignorant of his very ex- 
istence. 

The regular frequenters of the Court Theatre 
noticed him at last, and spoke about his infatuation 
for her, until at last she heard about him, but still 
did not know him, and although he could not send 
her any costly jewellery and not even a bouquet, yet 
at last he succeeded in attracting her attention. 

When the play was over and the theatre had been 
empty for some time and she left it, wrapped in val- 
uable furs, and got into the carriage of her banker, 


164 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


which was waiting for her at the stage door, he al- 
ways stood there, often up to his ankles in snow or 
in the pouring rain. 

At first she did not notice him, but when her maid 
said something to her in a whisper on one occasion, 
she looked round in surprise, and he got a look from 
those large eyes which were not dead then, but dark 
and bright; a look which recompensed him for all 
his sufferings and filled him with proud hopes which 
constantly gained more power over the young ideal- 
ist who was usually so modest. 

At last there was a thorough, silent understand- 
ing between the theatrical princess and the dumb 
adorer. When she put her foot on the carriage step 
she looked round at him, and every time he stood 
there devouring her with his eyes; she saw it and 
got contentedly into her carriage, but she did not 
see how he ran after her carriage, and how he 
reached her house out of breath when she did, nor 
how he lay down outside after the door had closed 
behind her. 

One stormy summer night, when the wind was 
howling in the chimneys and the rain was beating 
against the windows and on the pavement, the poor 
student was again lying on the stone steps outside 
her house, when the front door was opened very 
cautiously and quietly; for it was not the parsi- 
monious banker who was leaving the house, but a 
wealthy young officer whom the maid was letting 
out. He kissed the pretty little Cerberus as he put a 
gold coin into her hand, and then accidentally 
stepped on the idealist, who was lying outside. 


AN HONEST IDEAL 


165 

They all three simultaneously uttered a cry; the 
girl blew out the candle, the officer instinctively half 
drew his sword, and the student ran away. 

Ever since that night the poor, crazy fellow went 
about with a dagger, which he concealed in his belt, 
and it was his constant companion to the theatre 
and the stage door when the actress’s carriage used 
to wait for her, and to her house, where he nightly 
kept his painful watch. 

His first idea was to kill his fortunate rival, then 
himself, then the theatrical princess, but at last he 
lay down again outside her door or stood on the 
pavement and watched the shadows that flitted 
hither and thither on her window, his head turned 
by the magic spell of the lovely actress. 

And then the most incredible thing happened, 
something which he could never have hoped for, and 
which he scarcely believed when it did occur. 

One evening when she had been playing a very 
important part she kept her carriage waiting much 
longer than usual, but at last she appeared and 
got into it. She did not shut the door, however, 
but beckoned to the young idealist to follow 
her. 

He was almost delirious with joy, just as a mo- 
ment before he had been almost mad with despair, 
and obeyed her immediately, and during the drive 
he knelt at her feet and covered her hands with 
kisses. She allowed it quietly and even merrily, 
and when the carriage stopped at her door she let 
him lift her out of the carriage and went upstairs 
leaning on his arm. 


1 66 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


There the lady’s maid showed him into a luxuri- 
ously furnished drawing-room, while the actress 
changed her dress. 

Presently she appeared in her dressing-gown, sat 
down carelessly in an easy-chair, and asked him to 
sit down beside her. 

“ You take a great interest in me? ” she said. 

“ You are my ideal ! ” the student cried enthusi- 
astically. 

The theatrical princess smiled and said : 

“ Well, I will at any rate be an honest ideal ; I 
will not deceive you, and you shall not be able 
to say that I have misused your youthful en- 
thusiasm.” 

“ Oh, heavens ! ” the poor idealist exclaimed, 
throwing himself at her feet. 

“ Wait a moment ! Wait a moment ! ” she said, 
with a smile. “ I have not finished yet. I can only 
love a man who is in a position to provide me with 
all those luxuries which I demand, or, if you like, 
which an actress cannot do without. As far as I 
know you are poor, but your constant attention to 
me, without encouragement, has interested me, and 
I have invited you here, only to-night, however, and 
in return you must promise me not to rave about 
me, or to follow me, from to-night. Will you do 
this?” 

The wretched idealist was kneeling before her; 
he was having a terrible mental struggle. 

“ Will you promise me to do this ? ” she said 
again. 

“ Yes,” he said, almost groaning. 


AN HONEST IDEAL 


i6 7 


When he left her he was a man who had buried 
his ideal. He was almost as pale as a corpse; but 
in spite of this he is still alive, and if he has any 
ideal at all at present it is certainly not a theatrical 
princess. 


THE VENUS OF BRANIZA 


I N Braniza, some years ago, lived a noted Talmud 
student who was no less renowned for his beau- 
tiful wife than for his learning, wisdom, and 
fear of God. The Venus of Braniza deserved her 
name both on account of her remarkable beauty and 
also as the wife of a man who was deeply versed in 
the Talmud; for the wives of the Jewish philoso- 
phers are, as a rule, ugly, or even possess some bod- 
ily defect. 

The Talmud explains this in the following man- 
ner. It is well known that marriages are made in 
heaven, and at the birth of a boy a divine voice calls 
out the name of his future wife, and vice versa. 
But just as a good father tries to get rid of his 
good wares to outsiders, and only uses the damaged 
stuff at home for his children, so God bestows those 
women whom other men would not care to have on 
the Talmudists. 

Well, God made an exception in the case of our 
Talmudist, and had bestowed a Venus on him, per- 
haps only in order to confirm the rule by means of 
this exception, and to make it appear less hard. His 
wife was a woman who would have done honour to 
any king’s throne, or to a pedestal in any sculpture 
gallery. Tall, and with a wonderful voluptuous fig- 


THE VENUS OF BRANIZA 


169 


lire, she carried a strikingly beautiful head, sur- 
mounted by thick, black plaits, on her proud shoul- 
ders, while two large, dark eyes languished and 
glowed beneath her long lashes, and her beautiful 
hands looked as if they were carved out of 
ivory. 

This beautiful woman, who seemed to have been 
designed by nature to rule, to see slaves at her feet, 
to provide occupation for the painter’s brush, the 
sculptor’s chisel, and the poet’s pen, lived the life 
of a rare and beautiful flower shut up in a hot-house, 
for she sat the whole day long wrapped up in her 
costly fur jacket and looked down dreamily into the 
street. 

She had no children; her husband, the philoso- 
pher, studied and prayed and studied again from 
early morning until late at night; his mistress was 
the Veiled Beauty, as the Talmudists call the Kab- 
balah. She paid no attention to her house, for she 
was rich and everything went of its own accord like 
clockwork; nobody came to see her, and she never 
went out of the house; she sat and dreamed and 
brooded and — yawned. 

One day when a terrible storm of thunder and 
lightning had spent its fury over the town and all 
windows had been opened in order to let the Mes- 
siah in, the Jewish Venus was sitting, as usual, in 
her comfortable easy-chair, shivering in spite of her 
fur jacket, and was thinking, when suddenly she 
fixed her glowing eyes on the man who was sitting 
before the Talmud, swaying his body backward and 
forward, and said suddenly ; 


170 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ Just tell me, when will Messias, the Son of 
David, come ? ” 

“ He will come,” the philosopher replied, “ when 
all the Jews have become either altogether virtuous 
or altogther vicious, says the Talmud.’’ 

“ Do you believe that all the Jews will ever be- 
come virtuous?” the Venus continued. 

“ How can I believe that ? ” 

“ Then Messias will come when all the Jews have 
become vicious ? ” 

The philosopher shrugged his shoulders and lost 
himself again in the labyrinth of the Talmud, out 
of which, so it is said, only one man ever returned 
in his sound mind, and the beautiful woman at the 
window again looked dreamily out on the heavy 
rain, while her white fingers played unconsciously 
with the dark fur of her magnificent jacket. 

One day the Jewish philosopher had gone to a 
neighbouring town where an important question of 
ritual was to be decided. Thanks to his learning, 
the question was settled sooner than he had ex- 
pected, and instead of returning the next morning, 
as he had intended, he came back the same evening 
with a friend who was no less learned than himself. 
He got out of the carriage at his friend’s house 
and went home on foot, and was not a little sur- 
prised when he saw his windows brilliantly illumi- 
nated, and found an officer’s servant comfortably 
smoking his pipe in front of his house. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, in a 
friendly manner, but with some curiosity, neverthe- 
less. 


THE VENUS OF BRANIZA 


171 


“ I am watching, in case the husband of the beau- 
tiful Jewess should come home unexpectedly." 

“ Indeed? Well, mind and keep a good lookout." 

Saying this, the philosopher pretended to go 
away, but went into the house through the garden 
entrance at the back. When he got into the first 
room he found a table laid for two which had evi- 
dently only been left a short time previously. His 
wife was sitting as usual at her bedroom window 
wrapped in her fur jacket, but her cheeks were sus- 
piciously red, and her dark eyes had not their usual 
languishing look, but now rested on her husband 
with a gaze which expressed at the same time satis- 
faction and mockery. At that moment he kicked 
against an object on the floor which gave forth a 
strange sound. He picked it up and examined it in 
the light. It was a pair of spurs. 

u Who has been here with you?" the Talmudist 
said. 

The Jewish Venus shrugged her shoulders con- 
temptuously, but did not reply. 

“ Shall I tell you ? The captain of hussars has 
been with you." 

“ And why should he not have been here with 
me?" she said, smoothing the fur on her jacket 
with her white hand. 

“ Woman ! are you out of your mind ? " 

“ I am in full possession of my senses," she re- 
plied, and a knowing smile hovered round her red, 
voluptuous lips. “ But must I not also do my part 
in order that Messias may come and redeem us poor 
Jews?" f 


KIND GIRLS 


E VERY Friday regularly about eleven o’clock 
in the morning he came into the courtyard, 
laid his soft felt hat at his feet, struck a few 
chords on his guitar, and then began to sing a ballad 
in a full, rich voice. And presently, at every win- 
dow in the four sides of that dull, barrack-like 
building, some girls appeared, one in an elegant 
dressing-gown, another in a little jacket, most of 
them with their breasts and arms bare, all of them 
just out of bed, with their hair hastily twisted up, 
their eyes blinking in the sudden blaze of sunlight, 
their complexions dull, and their eyes still heavy 
from want of sleep. 

They swayed themselves backward and forward 
to his slow melody, and gave themselves up to the 
enjoyment of it, and coppers and even silver poured 
into the handsome singer’s hat, and more than one 
of them would have liked to have followed the 
penny which she threw to him, and to have gone 
with the singer, who had the voice of a siren, and 
who seemed to say to all these amorous girls : 
“ Come, come to my retreat, where you will find a 
palace of crystal and gold, and wreaths which are 
always fresh, and happiness and love which never 
die.” 


KIND GIRLS 


173 


That was what they seemed to hear, those un- 
happy girls, when they heard him sing the song of 
the old legends which they had formerly believed. 
That was what they understood by the foolish 
words of the ballad. That and nothing else, for 
how could any one doubt it on seeing the fresh 
roses on their cheeks and the tender flame which 
flickered like a mystic night light in their eyes, 
which had, for the moment, become the eyes of in- 
nocent young girls again ? But of young girls who 
had grown up very quickly, alas ! who were very 
precocious, and who very soon became the women 
that they were, poor vendors of love, always in 
search of love for which they were paid. 

That was why, when he had finished his second 
ballad, and sometimes even sooner, concupiscent 
looks appeared in their eyes. The boatman of their 
dreams, the water sprite of fairy tales, vanished in 
the mist of their childish recollections, and the 
singer reassumed his real shape, that of musician 
and strolling player, whom they wished to pay to 
be their lover. And the coppers and small silver 
were showered on him again, with engaging smiles, 
with the leers of a street-walker, even with " p' st, 
p’ st,” which soon transformed the barrack-like 
courtyard into an enormous cage full of twittering 
birds, while some of them could not restrain them- 
selves, but said aloud, rolling their eyes with de- 
sire : “ How handsome the creature is ! Good 

heavens, how handsome he is ! ” 

He was really handsome, and nobody could deny 
it, and even too handsome, with a regular beauty 


174 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


which almost palled on people. He had large, al- 
mond-shaped, gentle eyes, a Grecian nose, a bow- 
shaped mouth, hidden by a heavy moustache, and 
long, black, curly hair; in short, a head fit to be 
put into a hairdresser's window, or, better still, per- 
haps, onto the front page of the ballads which he 
was singing. But what made him still handsomer 
was that his self-conceit had a look of sovereign in- 
difference, for he was not satisfied with not replying 
to the smiles, the ogles, and the p’ st, p’ st’ s, by 
taking no notice of them ; but when he had finished 
he shrugged his shoulders, he winked mischievously, 
and turned up his lips contemptuously, which said 
very clearly : “ The stove is not being heated for 

you, my little kittens ! ” 

Often one might have thought that he expressly 
wished to show his contempt, and that he tried to 
make himself thought unpoetical in the eyes of all 
those amorous girls, and to check their love, for he 
cleared his throat ostentatiously and offensively, 
more than was necessary, after singing, as if he 
would have liked to spit at them. But all that did 
not make him unpoetical in their eyes, and many of 
them, most of them, who were absolutely mad on 
him, went so far as to say that “ he did it like a 
swell ! ” 

The girl who in her enthusiasm had been the first 
to utter that exclamation of intense passion, and 
who, after throwing him small silver, had thrown 
him a twenty-franc gold piece, at last made up her 
mind to have an explanation. Instead of a p* st, 
p’ st, she spoke to him boldly one morning, in the 


KIND GIRLS 


175 


presence of all the others, who religiously held their 
tongues. 

“ Come up here/’ she called out to him, and from 
habit she added : “ I will be very nice, you hand- 
some dark fellow/’ 

At first they were dumfounded at her audacity, 
and then all their cheeks flushed with jealousy, and 
the flame of mad desire shot from their eyes. From 
every window there came a perfect torrent of : 

“ Yes, come up, come up/’ “ Don’t go to her ! 
Come to me.” 

And, meanwhile, there was a shower of half- 
pence, of francs, of gold coins, as well as of cigars 
and oranges, while lace pocket-handkerchiefs, silk 
neckties, and scarfs fluttered in the air and fell 
round the singer like a flight of many-coloured but- 
terflies. 

He picked up the spoil calmly, almost carelessly, 
stuffed the money into his pocket, made a bundle 
of the furbelows, which he tied up as if they had 
been soiled linen, and then, raising himself up and 
putting his felt hat on his head, he said : 

“ Thank you, ladies, but indeed I cannot.” 

They thought that he did not know how to satisfy 
so many demands at once, and one of them said : 
“ Let him choose.” 

“ Yes, yes, that is it! ” they all exclaimed unani- 
mously. 

But he repeated : “ I tell you I cannot.” 

They thought he was excusing himself out of gal- 
lantry, and several of them exclaimed, almost with 
tears of emotion : “ Women are all heart ! ” And 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


176 

the same voice that had spoken before (it was one 
of the girls who wished to settle the matter ami- 
cably) said : “ We must draw lots.” 

“ Yes, yes, that is it,” they all cried. And again 
there was a religious silence, more religious than 
before, for it was caused by anxiety, and the beat- 
ings of their hearts might have been heard. 

The singer profited by it, to say slowly : “ I can- 
not have that, either ; nor all of you at once, nor one 
after the other ; nothing ! I tell you that I cannot.” 

“ Why ? Why ? ” And now they were almost 
screaming, for they were angry and sorry at the 
same time. Their cheeks had gone from scarlet to 
livid, their eyes flashed fire, and some shook their 
fists menacingly. 

“ Silence ! ” the girl cried who had spoken first. 
“ Be quiet, you pack of huzzies ! Let him explain 
himself, and tell us why ! ” 

“ Yes, yes, let us be quiet! Make him explain 
himself, in God’s name ! ” 

Then, in the fierce silence that ensued, the singer 
said, opening his arms wide, with a gesture of de- 
spairing inability to do what they wanted: 

“ What do you want ? It is very amusing, but I 
cannot do more. I have two girls of my own al- 
ready at home.” 


VIOLATED 


I S it true ? ” exclaimed Paul ; “ is it true ? ” 

“ It is indeed. I who stand here before you 

was violated, violated by But if I should 

tell you at once by whom there would be no story, 
would there? And as you want a story, I will tell 
you all about it from beginning to end, and I shall 
begin at the beginning. 

“ I had been shooting for a week over the waste 
land in the heart of Brittany, which borders on the 
Black Mountain. It is a desolate and wild coun- 
try, but it abounds in game. One can walk for 
hours without meeting a human being, and when 
one meets anybody it is just the same as if one had 
not, for the people are absolutely ignorant of 
French, and when I got to an inn at night I had 
to employ signs to let the people know that I wanted 
supper and bed. 

“ As I happened to be in a melancholy frame of 
mind at the time, that solitude delighted me, and my 
dog's companionship was quite enough for me, and 
so you may guess my irritation when I perceived 
one morning that I was being followed, absolutely 
followed, by another sportsman who seemed to 
wish to enter into conversation with me. The day 
before I had already noticed him obstructing the 


i7» 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


horizon several times, and I had attributed it to the 
chance of sport, which brought us both to the same 
likely spots for game, but now I could not be mis- 
taken ! The fellow was evidently following me, and 
was stretching his short legs as much as he could, 
so as to keep up with my long strides, and took 
short cuts, so as to catch up with me by circumvent- 
ing me. 

“ As he seemed determined, I naturally grew ob- 
stinate, also, and he spent his whole day in trying 
to keep up with me, while I spent mine in trying to 
baffle him, and we seemed to be playing at hide-and- 
seek ; the consequences were that when it became 
dark I had completely lost myself in the most de- 
serted part of the moor. There was no cottage near, 
not even a church spire in the distance. The only 
landmark was the hateful outline of that cursed 
man, about five hundred yards off. 

“ Of course he won the game ! I should have to 
put a good face on the matter, and allow him to 
join me, or, rather, I should have to join him my- 
self, if I did not wish to sleep in the open air with 
an empty stomach, and so I went up to him and in- 
quired the way in a half-surly manner. 

“ He replied very affably that there was no inn 
in the neighbourhood, as the nearest village was five 
leagues off, but that he lived within half of an 
hour’s walk, and considered himself very fortunate 
in being able to offer me hospitality. 

“ I was utterly exhausted, and how could I re- 
fuse? So we went off through the heather and 
furze, I walking slowly because I was so tired, and 


VIOLATED 


179 


he went tripping along merrily with legs which 
seemed untiring, like a basset hound's. 

“ And yet he was an old man and not strongly 
built, for I could have knocked him over by blowing 
on him ; but how he could walk, the beast ! 

“ But he was not a troublesome companion, as I 
imagined he would be, and he did not at all seem to 
wish to enter into conversation with me, as I feared 
he would. When he had given his invitation, and I 
had accepted it and thanked him in a few words, he 
did not open his lips again, and we walked on in 
silence ; but his glances worried me, for I felt them 
on me, as if he wished to force me into an intimacy 
which my closed lips refused. But, on the whole, 
his persistent looks, which I noticed furtively, ap- 
peared sympathetic and even admiring — yes, really 
admiring ! 

“ But I could not repay him in kind, for he was 
certainly not handsome; his legs were short and 
rather bowed, and he was thin and narrow-chested. 
His face was like a bit of parchment, furrowed and 
wrinkled, without a hair on it to hide the folds in 
his skin. His hair resembled that of an Ignorantin 
brother, with its gray locks falling onto his greasy 
collar; he had a nose like a ferret, and rat’s eyes; 
but he was able to offer me food and quarters for 
the night, and it was not requisite that he should 
be handsome in order to do that. 

“ Capital food and very comfortable quarters ! A 
manorial dwelling, a real old, well-furnished manor- 
house ; and in the large dining-room, in front of the 
huge fireplace, where a large fire was blazing, din- 


i8o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ner was laid; I will say no more than that! A 
hotch-potch, which had been stewed since morning, 
no doubt! A salmis of woodcock, in defense of 
which angels would have taken up arms ; buck- 
wheat cakes in a cream flavoured with aniseed, and a 
cheese, which is a rare thing and hardly ever to be 
found in Brittany, a cheese to make any one eat a 
four-pound loaf if he only smelled the rind ! The 
whole accompanied by Chambertin, and then apple 
brandy from cider, which was so good that it made 
a man fancy that he had swallowed a deity in velvet 
breeches ; not to mention the cigars, pure, smuggled 
Havanas; large, strong, not dry, but green, which 
made a strong and intoxicating smoke. 

“ And how the little old gentleman stuffed, and 
drank, and smoked ! He was an ogre, a chorister, 
a sapper, and so was I, I must confess, and, upon 
my word, I cannot remember what we talked about 
during our Gargantuan feed ! But we certainly did 
talk, but about what? About shooting, certainly, 
and about women most probably. Confound it! 
Among men, after drinking! Yes, yes, about 
women, I am quite sure, and he told some funny 
stories, did the little old man! Especially about a 
portrait which was hanging over the large fireplace, 
and which represented his grandmother, a Marquise 
of the old regime. She was a woman who had cer- 
tainly been rather gay; and they said that she was 
still frisky and had good legs and thighs when she 
was seventy. 

“ ‘ It is extraordinary/ I remarked, * how like 
you are to that portrait/ 


VIOLATED 


181 


“‘Yes/ the old man replied, with a smile; and 
then he added, in his harsh, tremulous voice : * I re- 
semble her in everything. I am only sixty, and I 
feel as if I should have lusty, hot blood in me until 
I am seventy/ 

“ And then suddenly, very much moved and look- 
ing at me admiringly, as he had done once before, 
he said to the portrait : 

“ ‘ I say, Marquise, what a pity that you did not 
know this handsome young fellow ! ’ 

“ I remembered that apostrophe and that look 
very well when I went to bed about an hour later, 
nearly drunk, in the large room papered in white 
and gold to which I was shown by a tall, broad- 
shouldered footman, who wished me good night in 
Breton. 

“ Good night, yes ! But that implied going to 
sleep, which was just what I could not do. The 
Chambertin, the cider brandy, and the cigars had 
certainly made me drunk, but not so as to over- 
come me altogether. On the contrary, I was ex- 
cited, my nerves were highly strung, my blood was 
heated, and I was in a half-sleep in which I felt that 
I was very much alive, and my whole being was in a 
vibration and expansion, just as if I had been smok- 
ing hasheesh. 

“ Of course ! That was it ; I was dreaming while 
I was awake ; but I saw the door open and the Mar- 
quise, who had stepped down out of her frame, 
come in. She had taken off her furbelows, and was 
in her nightgown. Her powdered hair was now 
simply gathered in a knot and tied with a bow of 


182 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ribbon, instead of a la Pompadour, but I recognized 
her quite plainly by the trembling light of the candle 
which she carried. It was her face, with its piercing 
eyes, its sharp nose, and its smiling and sensual 
mouth. She did not look so young to me as she 
appeared in her portrait. Bah ! Perhaps that was 
merely because of the feeble, flickering light ! But 
I had not even time to account for it, nor to reflect 
on the strangeness of the sight, nor to discuss the 
matter with myself and say : * Am I dead drunk or 
is it a ghost ? ’ 

“ No, I had no time, and that is the fact, for the 
candle was suddenly blown out and the Marquise 
was in my bed and holding me in her arms ; and one 
fixed idea, the only one that I had, haunted me. 

“ ‘ Had the Marquise good limbs and was she 
still frisky at seventy ? ’ And I did not care much 
if she was seventy and if she was a ghost or not; 
I only thought of one thing : ‘ Has she really good 
limbs ? ’ 

“ By Jove, yes ! She did not speak. Oh, Mar- 
quise ! Marquise ! And suddenly, in spite of myself 
and to convince myself that it was not a mere fan- 
tastic dream, I exclaimed: 

“ ‘ Why, good heavens ! I am not dreaming ! ’ 

“ ‘ No, you are not dreaming,’ two lips replied, 
trying to press themselves against mine. 

“ But, oh, horror ! The mouth smelt of cigars 
and brandy! The voice was that of the little old 
man ! 

“ With a bound I sent him flying on to the 
ground, and jumped out of bed, shouting: 


VIOLATED 


183 


“ 4 Beast! beast!’ 

“ Then I heard the door slam and bare feet pat- 
tering on the stairs as he ran away; so I dressed 
hastily in the dark and went downstairs, still shout- 
ing. 

“ In the hall below, where I could see through 
the upper windows that the dawn was breaking, I 
met the broad-shouldered footman, who was hold- 
ing a great cudgel in his hand. He was bawling, 
also, in Breton, and pointed to the open door, out- 
side which my dog was waiting. What could I say 
to this savage who did not speak French? Should I 
face his cudgel? There was no reason for doing 
so; and, besides, I was even more ashamed than 
furious ; so I hastily took up my gun and my game 
bag, which were in the hall, and went off without 
turning round. 

“ Disgusted with sport in that part of the country, 
I returned to Brest the same day, and there, timidly 
and with many precautions, I tried to find out some- 
thing about the little old man. 

“ ‘ Oh, I know ! ’ somebody replied at last to my 
question ; * you are speaking of the manor-house at 
Hervenidozse, where the old Countess lives who 
dresses like a man and sleeps with her coachman/ 

“ And, with a deep sigh of relief, and much to the 
astonishment of my informant, I replied : 

“ ‘ Oh ! so much the better ! ’ ” 


DELILA 


I T is no exaggeration to say that Wanda von Cha- 
bert, whose acquaintance we made in a former 
reminiscence and who had frequently aided the 
police in former years, was the cleverest, the most 
charming, and the most selfish woman one could 
possibly meet. Neither her face nor her figure was 
symmetrical enough for beauty ; but if she were not 
cast in the mould of the antique and resembles neith- 
er the Venus of Milo nor Juno, her style was none 
the less charming, and suggested the subjects of 
Watteau and Mignard. Everything in her little face, 
in its frame of soft brown hair, was attractive and 
seductive, her low Grecian forehead, her bright, al- 
mond-shaped eyes, her small nose and her full, 
voluptuous lips, her medium height and her small 
waist with its, perhaps, almost too full bust, and 
above all her walk, that half-indolent, half-coquet- 
tish swaying of her hips, were all maddeningly al- 
luring. 

And this woman, who was born for love, was as 
eager for pleasure as few other women have ever 
been, but for that very reason she never ran any 
danger of allowing her victims to escape her from 
pity ; on the contrary, she soon grew tired of each of 
her favourites, and her connection with the police 


DELILA 185 

was then extremely useful to her, in order to get 
rid of an inconvenient or jealous lover. 

Before the war between Austria and Italy in 
1859, Frau von Chabert was in London, where she 
lived alone in a small one-story house with her ser- 
vants, and was in constant communication with emi- 
grants from all countries. 

She herself was thought to be a Polish refugee, 
and the luxury by which she was surrounded, and 
a fondness for sport, and above all for horses, which 
was remarkable even in England, made people give 
her the title of Countess. At that period Count 

T was one of the most prominent members of 

the Hungarian propaganda, and Frau von Chabert 
was commissioned to pay particular attention to all 
he said and did ; but in spite of all the trouble she 
took she had not hitherto even succeeded in making 
his acquaintance. He lived the life of a misan- 
thrope, quite apart from the great social stream of 
London, and he was not believed to be either gallant 
or ardent in love. Fellow countrymen of his, who 
had known him formerly during the Magyar revolu- 
tion, described him as very cautious, cold, and 
silent, so that if any man possessed a charm against 
the toils which she set for him, it was he. 

Just then it happened that as Wanda was riding 
in Hyde Park quite early one morning before many 
people were about, her thoroughbred English mare 
took fright, and threatened to throw the plucky 
rider, who did not for a moment lose her presence 
of mind. Before her groom had time to come to 
her assistance, a man in a Hungarian braided coat 


i86 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


rushed from the path and caught hold of the ani- 
mal’s bridle. When the mare had become quiet he 
was about to go away with a slight bow, but Frau 
von Chabert detained him so that she might thank 
him, and have leisure to examine him more closely. 
He was neither young nor handsome, but was well 
made, as are all Hungarians, and had an interesting 
and very expressive face. His sallow complexion 
was set off by a short black full beard, and he 
looked as if he were suffering, while he fixed two 
great black fanatical eyes on the beautiful young 
woman who was smiling at him so amiably, and it 
was the strange look in those large eyes which 
aroused in the soul of that woman who was so very 
excitable that violent but fleeting sensation which 
she called love. She turned her horse and accom- 
panied the stranger. He seemed to be even more 
charmed by her chatter than by her appearance, for 
his grave face grew more and more animated, and 
at last he himself became quite friendly and talka- 
tive. When he took leave of her Wanda gave him 
her card, on the back of which her address was 
written, and he immediately gave her his in return. 

She thanked him and rode off, looking at his 
name as she did so ; it was Count T . 

She felt inclined to give a shout of pleasure when 
she found that the noble quarry which she had been 
hunting so long had at last come into her preserves, 
but she did not even turn her head round to look at 
him, such was the command which that woman had 
over herself and her movements. 

Count T called upon her the very next day; 


DELI LA 


18 7 


soon he came every day, and in less than a month 
after that innocent adventure in Hyde Park he was 
at her feet; for when Frau von Chabert made up 
her mind to be loved nobody was able to withstand 
her. She became the Count’s confidante, and every 
day, and almost every hour, she, with the most 
delicate coquetry, laid fresh fetters on the Hun- 
garian Samson. Did she love him ? 

Certainly she did, after her own fashion, and at 
first she had not the remotest idea of betraying him ; 
she even succeeded in completely concealing her as- 
sociation with him, not only in London but also in 
Vienna. 

Then the war of 1859 broke out, and, like most 
Hungarian and Polish refugees, Count T hur- 

ried off to Italy, in order to place himself at the 
disposal of that great patriotic Piedmontese states- 
man, Cavour. 

Wanda followed him and took the greatest in- 
terest in his revolutionary intrigues in Turin; for 
some time she seemed to be his right hand, and it 
looked as if she had become unfaithful to her pres- 
ent patrons. Through his means she was soon on 
intimate terms with Piedmontese government cir- 
cles, and that proved his destruction. 

A young Italian diplomatist, who frequently ne- 
gotiated with Count T , or in his absence with 

Wanda, fell madly in love with the charming Polish 
woman, and she, who was never cruel, more espe- 
cially when her affections were involved, allowed 
herself to be conquered by the handsome, intellec- 
tual, daring man. In measure as her passion for 


i88 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the Italian increased, her affection for Count T 

diminished, and at last she felt that he was nothing 
but a hindrance and a burden, and as soon as 
Wanda had reached that point her adorer was as 
good as lost. 

Count T was not a man whom she could just 

coolly dismiss, or with whom she might venture to 
trifle, and that she knew perfectly well; so in order 
to avoid a catastrophe the consequences of which 
might be disastrous for her, she did not let him no- 
tice the change in her feelings toward him at first, 
and kept the Italian at a proper distance. 

When peace had been concluded and the great, 
peaceful revolution, which found its provisional set- 
tlement in the constitution of February and in the 
Hungarian agreement, began in Austria, the Hun- 
garian refugees determined to send Count T to 

Hungary that he might assume the direction of af- 
fairs there. But as he was still an outlaw and as 
the death sentence of Arad hung over his head like 
the sword of Damocles, he consulted with Wanda 
about the ways and means of reaching his father- 
land unharmed and of remaining there undiscov- 
ered. Although that clever woman thought of a 

plan immediately, yet she told Count T that she 

would think the matter over, and did not bring for- 
ward her proposition for a few days. It was then, 
however, received by the Count and his friends with 
the highest approval, and was immediately carried 
into execution. Frau von Chabert went to Vienna 

as Marchioness Spinola, and T accompanied 

her as her footman ; he had cut his hair short and 


DELI LA 


189 


shaved off his beard; so that in his livery he was 
quite unrecognizable. They crossed the frontier in 
safety, and reached Vienna without any interference 
from the authorities ; and there they first of all went 
to a small hotel, but she soon took a small, hand- 
some apartment in the centre of the town. Count 

T immediately hunted up some members of his 

party, who had been in constant communication 
with the emigrants since Vilagos, and the conspiracy 
was soon set on foot, while Wanda passed away her 
time with a hussar officer, without, however, losing 
sight of her lover and of his dangerous activity for 
a moment on that account. 

And at last, when the fruit was ready to fall into 
her lap, she was sitting in the private room of the 
Minister of Police, opposite to the man with whom 
she was going to make the evil compact. 

“ The emigrants must be very uneasy and dis- 
heartened at an agreement and reconciliation with 
Hungary,” he began. 

“ Do not deceive yourself,” Frau von Chabert 
replied ; “ nothing is more dangerous in politics 
than optimism, and the influence of the revolution- 
ary propaganda was never greater than it is at pres- 
ent. Do not hope to conciliate the Magyars by half 
concessions, and, above all things, do not under- 
estimate the movement which is being organized 
openly in broad daylight.” 

“ You are afraid of a revolution? ” 

“ I know that they are preparing for one, and 
that they expect everything from that alone.” 

The skeptical man smiled. 


190 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

“ Give me something besides views and opinions, 
and then I will believe . . ** 

f “I will give you the proof,” Wanda said, “but 
before I do you the greatest service that lies in my. 
power I must be sure that I shall be rewarded for 
all my skill and trouble.” 

“ Can you doubt it ? ” 

“ I will be open with you,” Wanda continued. 
“ During the insurrectionary war in Transylvania 
Urban had excellent spies, but they have not been 
paid to this day. I want money . . .” 

“How much?” 

With inimitable ease the beautiful woman men- 
tioned a very considerable sum. The skeptical man 
got up to give a few orders, and a short time after- 
ward the money was in Wanda’s hands. 

“ Well?” 

“ The emigrants have sent one of their most in- 
fluential and talented members to organize the revo- 
lution in Hungary.” 

“ Have they sent him already ? ” 

“ More than that, for Count T is in Vienna at 

this moment.” 

“ Do vou know where he is hiding? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you are sure that you are not mistaken ? ’* 

“ I am most assuredly not mistaken,” she replied, 

with a frivolous laugh ; “ Count T who was my 

admirer in London and Turin, is here in my house 
as my footman.” 

An hour later the Count was arrested. But 
Wanda only wished to get rid of her tiresome 


adorer, and not to destroy him. She had been on 
intimate terms with him long enough and had taken 
such a part in his political plans and intrigues as 
to be able to give the most reliable information 
about him personally as well as about his intentions ; 
and that information was such that, in spite of the 
past and of the Count’s revolutionary standpoint, 
they thought they had discovered in him the man 
who was capable of bringing about a real reconcilia- 
tion between the monarch and his people. In conse- 
quence of this T , who thought that he had in- 

curred the gallows, stood in the Emperor’s presence, 
and the manner in which the latter expressed his 
generous intentions with regard to Hungary carried 
the old rebel away, and he gave him his word of 
honor that he would bring the nation back to him, 
reconciled. And he kept his word, although, per- 
haps, not exactly in the sense in which he gave it. 

He was allowed full liberty in going to Hungary, 
and Wanda accompanied him. He had no suspicion 
that even in her arms he was under police supervi- 
sion, and from the moment he made his appearance 
in his native land officially, as the intermediary be- 
tween the crown and the people, she had a fresh in- 
terest in binding to herself a man of such impor- 
tance, whom everybody regarded as Hungary’s fu- 
ture Minister-President. 

He began to negotiate, and at first everything 
went well, but soon the yielding temper of the gov- 
ernment gave rise continually to fresh demands, and 
before long what one side offered and the other side 
demanded were so far apart that no immediate 


192 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


agreement could be thought of. The Count’s posi- 
tion grew more painful every day; he had pledged 
himself too deeply to both sides, and in vain he 
sought for a way out of the difficulty. 

Then one day the Minister of Police unexpectedly 
received a letter from Wanda, in which she told him 

that T , urged on by his fellow countrymen and 

branded as a traitor by the emigrants, was on the 
point of heading a fresh conspiracy. 

Thereupon the government energetically re- 
minded that thoroughly honest and noble man of his 

word of honour, and T , who saw that he was 

unable to keep it, ended his life by a pistol bullet. 

Frau von Chabert left Hungary immediately after 
the sad catastrophe and went to Turin, where new 
lovers, new splendours, and new laurels awaited her. 

We may, perhaps, hear more of her. 


THE ILL-OMENED GROOM 


A N Austrian banker discovered one day that a 
serious robbery had occurred in his home. 
Jewels, a valuable watch set with diamonds, 
his wife’s miniature in a frame set with brilliants, 
and a considerable sum in money, the whole amount- 
ing in value to a hundred and fifteen thousand 
florins, had been stolen from his room. He went to 
the Director of Police to give notice of the robbery, 
but at the same time begged as a special favour that 
the investigation might be carried on as quietly and 
considerately as possible, as he declared that he had 
not the slightest ground for suspecting anybody in 
particular, and did not wish any innocent person to 
be accused. 

“ First of all, give me the names of all the per- 
sons who regularly go into your bedroom,” the Po- 
lice Director said. 

“ Nobody except my wife, my children, and Jo- 
seph, my valet ; a man for whom I would answer as 
I would for myself.” 

“ Then you think him absolutely incapable of 
committing such a deed ? ” 

“ Most decidedly I do,” the banker replied. 

“Very well; then can you remember whether on 
the day on which you first missed the articles that 


194 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


have been stolen or on any days immediately pre- 
ceding it anybody who was not a member of your 
household happened by chance to go to your bed- 
room ? ” 

The banker thought for a moment and then said, 
with some hesitation : 

“ Nobody, absolutely nobody.” 

The experienced official, however, was struck by 
the banker’s slight embarrassment and momentary 
blush, so he took his hand, and looking him straight 
in the face, he said : 

“You are not quite candid with me; somebody 
was with you, and you wish to conceal the fact from 
me. You must tell me everything.” 

“ No, no; indeed, there was no one here.” 

“ Then at present there is only one person on 
whom any suspicion can rest — and that is your 
valet.” 

“ I will vouch for his honesty,” the banker re- 
plied immediately. 

“ You may be mistaken, and I shall be obliged to 
^question the man.” 

“ May I beg you to do it with every possible con- 
sideration ? ” 

“ You may rely upon me for that.” 

An hour later the banker’s valet was in the Police 
Director’s private room. The official first of all 
looked at his man very closely, and then came to the 
conclusion that such an honest, unembarrassed face 
and such quiet, steady eyes could not possibly be- 
long to a criminal. 

“ Do you know why I have sent for you ? 99 


THE ILL-OMENED GROOM 


195 


“ No, your honour.” 

“ A serious theft has been committed in your 
master’s house,” the Police Director continued, “ in 
his bedroom. Do you suspect anybody? Who has 
been in the room within the last few days ? ” 

“ Nobody but myself, except my master’s fam- 
ily.” 

“ Do you not see, my good fellow, that by saying 
that you throw suspicion on yourself ? ” 

“ Surely, sir,” the valet exclaimed, “ you do not 
believe . . .” 

“ I must not believe anything ; my duty is merely 
to investigate and to follow up any traces that I 
may discover,” was the reply. “If you have been 
the only person to go into the room within the last 
few days I must hold you responsible.” 

“ My master knows me . . .” 

The Police Director shrugged his shoulders. 
“ Your master has vouched for your honesty, but 
that is not enough for me. You are the only per- 
son on whom, at present, any suspicion rests, and 
therefore I must — sorry as I am to do so — have you 
arrested.” 

“ If that is so,” the man said, after some hesita- 
tion, “ I prefer to speak the truth, for my good 
name is worth more to me than my situation. Some- 
body was in my master’s apartments yesterday.” 

“ And this somebody was . . .” 

“ A lady.” 

“ A lady of his acquaintance ? ” 

The valet did not reply for some time. 

“ It must come out,” he said at length. " My 


196 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


master has met a woman — you understand, sir, a 
pretty, fair woman; and he seems to be very fond 
of her, and goes to see her, but secretly, of course, 
for if my mistress were to find it out there would 
be a terrible scene. This person was in the house 
yesterday. ,, 

“ Were they alone? ” 

“ I showed her in myself, and she was in the bed- 
room. I had to call my master at once, as his con- 
fidential clerk wanted to speak to him, and so she 
was in the room alone for about a quarter of an 
hour. ,, 

“ What is her name ? ” 

“ Cecilia K ; she is a Hungarian/’ At the 

same time the valet gave him her address. 

Then the Director of Police sent for the banker, 
who, on being brought face to face with his valet, 
was obliged to acknowledge the truth of the facts 
which the latter had alleged, painful as it was for 
him to do so ; whereupon orders were given to take 
Cecilia K into custody. 

In less than half an hour, however, the police offi- 
cer who had been dispatched for that purpose re- 
turned and said that she had left her apartments, 
and most likely the capital also, the previous even- 
ing. The unfortunate banker was almost in despair. 
Not only had he been robbed of a hundred and fifty 
thousand florins, but at the same time he had lost 
the beautiful woman. He could not grasp the idea 
that a woman whom he had surrounded with Asiatic 
luxury, whose strangest whims he had gratified, and 
whose tyranny he had borne so patiently, could have 


THE ILL-OMENED GROOM 


197 


deceived him so shamefully, and now he had a quar- 
rel with his wife and an end of all domestic peace 
into the bargain. 

The only thing the police could do was to send 
detectives after the lady, who had denounced herself 
by her flight, but it was all of no use. In vain did 
the banker, in whose heart hatred and thirst for re- 
venge had taken the place of love, implore the Direc- 
tor of Police to employ every means to bring the 
beautiful criminal to justice, and in vain did he 
undertake to be responsible for all the costs of her 
prosecution, no matter how heavy they might be. 
Special police officers were told off to try and dis- 
cover her, but Cecilia K was so inconsiderate 

as not to allow herself to be caught. 

Three years had passed and the unpleasant story 
appeared to have been forgotten. The banker had 
obtained his wife’s pardon, and the police did not 
appear to trouble themselves about the beautiful 
Hungarian any more. 

The scene now changes to London. A wealthy 
lady who created much sensation in society, and who 
made many conquests both by her beauty and her 
behaviour, was in need of a groom. Among the 
many applicants for the situation was a young man 
whose good looks and manners gave people the 
impression that he must have been very well edu- 
cated. This was a recommendation in the eyes of 
the lady’s maid, and she took him immediately to 
her mistress’s boudoir. When he entered he saw a 
beautiful, voluptuous-looking woman, twenty-five 
years of age at most, with large, bright eyes and 


198 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


blue-black hair, which seemed to increase the bril- 
liancy of her fair complexion. She was lying on a 
sofa. She looked at the young man, who had thick 
black hair, and who turned his glowing black eyes 
to the ground, beneath her searching gaze, with evi- 
dent satisfaction, and she seemed particularly taken 
with his slender, athletic build, and said half lazily 
and half proudly: 

“ What is your name?” 

“ Lajos Mariassi.” 

“A Hungarian ? ” 

A strange look came into her eyes. 

“ Yes.” 

“ How did you come here ? ” 

“ I am one of the many emigrants who have for- 
feited their country and their life; and I, who come 
of a good family, and who was an officer of the 
Honveds, must now ... go into service, and 
thank God if I find a mistress who is at the same 
time beautiful and an aristocrat, as you are.” 

Mademoiselle Zoe — that was the lovely woman’s 
name — smiled, and at the same time showed two 
rows of pearly teeth. 

“ I like your appearance,” she said, “ and I feel 
inclined to take you into my service, if you are satis- 
fied with my terms.” 

“ A lady’s whim,” her maid said to herself, when 
she noticed the looks which Mademoiselle Zoe gave 
her manservant, “ which will soon pass away.” But 
that experienced female was mistaken that time. 

Zoe was really in love, and the respect with which 
Lajos treated her put her into a very bad temper. 


THE ILL-OMENED GROOM 


199 


One evening, when she intended to go to the Italian 
opera, she countermanded her carriage and refused 
to see her noble admirer, who was ready to throw 
himself at her feet, and she ordered her groom to be 
sent up to her. 

“ Lajos,” she began, “ I am not at all satisfied 
with you.” 

“ Why, Madame? ” 

“ I do not wish to have you about me any longer ; 
here are your wages for three months. Leave the 
house immediately.” And she began to walk up and 
down the room impatiently. 

“ I will obey you, Madame,” the groom replied, 
“ but I shall not take my wages.” 

“ Why not ? ” she asked hastily. 

“ Because then I should be under your authority 
for three months,” Lajos said, “and I intend to be 
free, this very moment, so that I may be able to tell 
you that I entered your service, not for the sake of 
your money, but because I love and adore you as 
a beautiful woman.” 

“ You love me ! ” Zoe exclaimed. “ Why did you 
not tell me sooner? I merely wished to banish you 
from my presence, because I love you and did not 
think that you loved me. But you shall smart for 
having tormented me so. Come to my feet imme- 
diately. 

The groom knelt before the lovely girl, and from 
that moment Lajos became her favourite. Of course 
he was not allowed to be jealous, as the young lord 
was still her official lover, who had the pleasure of 
paying her bills, and besides him, there was a whole 


200 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


army of so-called “ good friends,” who were for- 
tunate enough to obtain a smile now and then, and 
who, in return, had permission to present her with 
rare flowers, a parrot, or diamonds. 

The more intimate Zoe became with Lajos the 
more uncomfortable she felt when he looked at her, 
as he frequently did, with undisguised contempt. 
She was wholly under his influence and was afraid 
of him, and one day, while he was playing with her 
dark curls, he said jeeringly: 

“ It is usually said that contrasts attract each 
other, and yet you are as dark as I am.” 

She smiled and then tore off her black curls, and 
immediately the most charming, fair-haired woman 
was sitting by the side of Lajos, who looked at her 
attentively, but without any surprise. 

He left the house at about midnight in order to 
look after the horses, as he said, and she retired. In 
two hours’ time she was roused from her slumbers 
and saw a police inspector and two constables by the 
side of her bed. 

“ Whom do you want ? ” she cried. 

“ Cecilia K— ” 

“ I am Mademoiselle Zoe.” 

“ Oh ! I know you,” the inspector said, with a 
smile ; “ be kind enough to take off your dark locks, 

and you will be Cecilia K . I arrest you in the 

name of the law.” 

“ Good heavens!” she stammered. “Lajos has 
betrayed me.” 

“ You are mistaken, Madame,” the inspector re- 
plied ; “ he has merely done his duty.” 


THE ILL-OMENED GROOM 


201 


“What? Lajos . . . my adorer?” 

“ No, Lajos, the detective." 

Cecilia got out of bed, and the next moment sank 
fainting to the floor. 


CHARM OF THE STABLE 


T HREE society women were sitting on a bench 
in the shade of some pine trees at Ischl, and 
were talking incidentally of their preference 
for all sorts of odours. 

One of the ladies, Princess F , a slim, hand- 

some brunette, declared there was nothing like the 
smell of Russia leather. She wore dull-brown Rus- 
sia leather boots, a Russia leather dress supporter, 
to keep her petticoats out of the dirt and dust, a 
Russia leather belt which spanned her wasplike 
waist, carried a Russia leather purse, and even wore 
a brooch and bracelet of gilt Russia leather. Peo- 
ple declared that her bedroom was papered with 
Russia leather, and that her young gallants were 
obliged to wear high Russia leather boots and tight 
breeches, but that, on the other hand, her husband 
was excused from wearing anything at all in Russia 
leather. 

Countess H , a very stout lady, who had for- 

merly been very beautiful and of a very loving 
nature, after the fashion of her time, a la Parthenia 
and Griseldis, could not get over the vulgar taste 
of the young Princess. All she cared for was the 
smell of hay, and she it was who brought the scent 
of new-mown hay into fashion. Her ideal was a 


CHARM OF THE STABLE 


203 


freshly mown field in the moonlight, and when she 
rolled slowly along she seemed like a moving hay- 
stack and exhaled an odour of hay all about her. 

The third lady’s taste was even more peculiar 

than Countess H ’s, and more vulgar than the 

Princess’s, for the small, delicate, light-haired 

Countess W lived only for — the smell of stables. 

Her friends could absolutely not understand this; 
the Princess raised her beautiful, full arm with its 
broad bracelet to her Grecian nose and inhaled the 
sweet smell of the Russia leather, while the senti- 
mental hayrick exclaimed over and over again : 

“ How dreadful ! What dost thou say to it, chaste 
moon ? ” 

The delicate little Countess seemed very much 
embarrassed at the effect that her confession had 
had, and tried to justify her taste. 

“ Prince T told me that that smell had quite 

bewitched him once,” she said; “ it was in a Jewish 
town in Galicia, where he was quartered once with 
his hussar regiment, and a number of poor, ragged 
circus riders, with half-starved horses, came from 
Russia and put up a circus with a few poles and 
some rags of canvas, and the Prince went to see 
them, and found a woman among them who was 
neither young nor beautiful, but bold and impudent ; 
and this woman wore a faded, bright red jacket 
trimmed with old, shabby imitation ermine, and that 
jacket stank of the stable, as the Prince expressed 
it, and she bewitched him with that odour, so that 
every time he saw her, and she smelt abominably of 
the stable, he felt as if he were magnetized.” 


204 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ How disgusting ! ” both the other ladies said, 
and involuntarily held their noses. 

“ What dost thou say to it, chaste moon ? 99 the 
haystack said with a sigh, and the little light-haired 
Countess was abashed, and held her tongue. 

At the beginning of the winter season the three 
friends were together again in the gay imperial 
city on the blue Danube. One morning the Princess 
accidentally met the enthusiast of hay at the house 
of the little, light-haired Countess, and the two 
ladies were obliged to go after her to her private 
riding-school, where she was taking her daily les- 
son. As soon as she saw them she came up and 
beckoned her riding master to her to help her out 
of the saddle. He was a young man of extremely 
good and athletic build, which was set off by his 
tight breeches and his short velvet coat, and he ran 
up and took his lovely burden into his arms with 
visible pleasure to help her off the quiet, perfectly 
broken horse. 

When the ladies looked at the handsome, vigor- 
ous man, it was quite enough to explain their little 
friend’s predilection for the smell of a stable; but 
when the latter saw their looks she blushed up to 
the roots of her hair, and her only way out of the 
difficulty was to order the riding master, in a very 
authoritative manner, to take the horse back to the 
stable. He merely bowed with an indescribable 
smile, and obeyed her. 

A few months afterward Viennese society was 

alarmed at the news that Countess W had been 

divorced from her husband. The event was all the 


CHARM OF THE STABLE 


205 


more unexpected as they had apparently always 
lived very happily together, and nobody was able to 
mention any man on whom she had bestowed even 
the most passing attention, beyond the requirements 
of politeness. 

Long afterward, however, a strange report be- 
came current. A chattering lady’s maid declared 
that the handsome riding master had once so far 
forgotten himself as to strike the Countess with his 
riding whip; a groom had told the Count of the 
occurrence, and when he was going to call the inso- 
lent fellow to account for it the Countess placed 
herself before him, and thus gave occasion for the 
divorce. 

Years had passed since then and the Countess 

H had grown stouter and more sentimental. 

Ischl and hayricks were not enough for her any 
longer; she spent the winter on lovely Lago Mag- 
giore, where she walked among laurel bushes and 
cypress trees and was rowed about on the warm 
moonlight nights. 

One evening she was returning home in the com- 
pany of an English lady, who was also a great lover 
of nature, from Isola Bella, when they met a beau- 
tiful private boat in which a very unusual couple 
were sitting — a small, delicate, light-haired woman, 
wrapped in a white burnous, and a handsome, ath- 
letic man, in tight white breeches, a short black 
velvet coat trimmed with sable, a red fez on his 
head, and a riding whip in his hand. 

Countess K involuntarily uttered a loud ex- 

clamation. 


206 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


"What is the matter?” the English lady asked. 
“ Do you know those people ? ” 

“ Certainly ! She is a Viennese lady,” Countess 

H whispered ; “ Countess W ” 

“ Oh ! Indeed, you are quite mistaken ; it is a 
Count Savelli and his wife. They are a handsome 
couple, don’t you think so ? ” 

When the boat came nearer she saw that it was 
indeed little Countess W , and that the hand- 

some man was her former riding master, whom she 
had married and for whom she had bought a Papal 
title; and as the two boats passed each other the 
short sable cloak, which was thrown carelessly over 
his shoulders, exhaled, like the old cat’s-skin jacket 
of that impudent female circus rider, a strong odour 
of the stable. 


THE VIATICUM 


W HAT truth was there, after all, in what was 
said almost unreservedly at court ? ” said 
Comte d’Avorsy, as he slowly stirred his 
tea. “Did the Empress, whose beauty has been 
destroyed by some secret sorrow, who will no longer 
see any one and who soothes her continual mental 
weariness by journeys without an object and with- 
out a rest, in foggy and melancholy islands, did she 
really forget that Caesar’s wife ought to be above 
suspicion? Did she really give herself to that 
strange and attractive roue, Ladislas Ferkoz?” 

The bright night seemed to be scattering hand- 
fuls of stars into the placid sea, which was as calm 
as a blue pond slumbering in the depths of a forest. 
Amid the tall climbing roses, which hung like a 
mantle of yellow blossoms on the fretted balustrade 
of the terrace, there stood out in the distance the 
illuminated fronts of the hotels and villas, and occa- 
sionally women’s laughter was heard above the 
dull, monotonous sound of surf and the noise of 
the fog horns. 

Then Captain Sigmund Oroshaz, whose sad, pen- 
sive face of a soldier who has seen too much slaugh- 
ter and too many charnel-houses was marked by a 


208 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


large scar, raised his head and said in a grave, 
haughty voice: 

“ Nobody has lied in accusing Maria-Gloriosa of 
being untrue, and nobody has calumniated the Em- 
press and her Minister, whom God has damned in 
the other world. Ladislas Ferkoz was his sover- 
eign’s lover until he died, and made his august 
master ridiculous and almost odious; for the man, 
no matter who he be, who allows himself to be 
flouted by a creature who is unworthy of bearing 
his name and of sharing his bread, who puts up 
with such disgrace, who does not crush the guilty 
couple with all the weight of his power, is not worth 
pity, nor does he deserve to be spared contempt. 
And if I affirm this so harshly, my dear Count — 
although years and years have passed since the 
sponge wiped out that old story — it is because I 
saw the last chapter of it — quite in spite of myself, 
however — for I was the officer who was on duty 
at the palace, and obliged to obey orders, just as 
if I had been on the field of battle — and on that 
day I was on duty near Maria-Gloriosa.” 

Madame de Laumieres, who had begun an ani- 
mated conversation on crinolines, amid the fragrant 
odour of Russian cigarettes, and who was making 
fun of the striking toilets, which she had amused 
herself by scanning through her opera-glass a few 
hours previously at the races, stopped, for even 
when she was talking most volubly she always kept 
her ears open to hear what was being said around 
her, and as her curiosity was aroused, she inter- 
rupted Sigmund Oroshaz. 


THE VIATICUM 


209 


“ Ah ! Monsieur,” she said, “ you are not going 
to leave our curiosity unsatisfied ... a story about 
the Empress puts all our scandals on the shelf, 
and all our questions of dress into the shade, and 
I am sure,” she added, with a smile at the corners 
of her mouth, “ that even our friend Madame d’Or- 
monde will leave off flirting with Monsieur Le Bras- 
sard to listen to you.” 

Captain Oroshaz continued, with his large blue 
eyes full of recollections : 

“ It was in the midst of a grand ball that the 
Emperor was giving on the occasion of some family 
anniversary, though I forget exactly what, and 
Maria-Gloriosa, who was in great grief, as she had 
heard that her lover was ill and his life almost 
despaired of, far from her, was going about with 
her face as pale as that of Our Lady of Sorrows, 
seemed to be a soul in affliction, appeared to be 
ashamed of her bare shoulders, as if she were being 
made a parade of in the light, while he, the adored 
of her heart, was lying on a bed of sickness, getting 
weaker every moment, longing for her and perhaps 
calling for her in his distress. About midnight, 
when the violins were striking up the quadrille, 
which the Emperor was to dance with the wife of 
the French Ambassador, one of the ladies of honour, 
Countess Szegedin, went up to the Empress, and 
whispered a few words to her, in a very low voice. 
Maria-Gloriosa grew still paler, but mastered her 
emotion and waited until the end of the last figure. 
Then, however, she could not restrain herself any 
longer, and even without giving any pretext for 


210 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


running away in such a manner, and leaning on the 
arm of her lady in waiting, she made her way 
through the crowd as if she were in a dream and 
went to her own apartments. I told you that I 
was on duty that evening at the door of her rooms, 
and according to etiquette, I was going to salute 
her respectfully, but she did not give me time. 

“ ‘ Captain,’ she said, excitedly and vehemently, 
4 give orders for my own private coachman, Hans 
Hildersheim, to get a carriage ready for me with- 
out delay.’ Thinking better of it immediately, she 
went on : ‘ But no, we should only lose time, and 
every minute is precious. Give me a cloak quickly, 
Madame, and a lace veil; we will go out of one of 
the small doors in the park, and take the first con- 
veyance we see.’ 

“ She wrapped herself in her furs, hid her face 
in her mantilla, and I accompanied her, without at 
first knowing what this mystery was and where we 
were going on this mad expedition. I hailed a cab 
that was standing by the side of the pavement, and 
when the Empress gave me the address of Ladislas 
Ferkoz, the Minister of State, in a low voice, in 
spite of my usual phlegm, I felt a vague shiver of 
emotion, one of those movements of hesitation and 
recoil from which the bravest are not exempt at 
times. But how could I get out of this unpleasant 
part of acting as her companion, and how show 
want of politeness to a sovereign who had com- 
pletely lost her head? Accordingly we started, but 
the Empress did not pay any more attention to me 
than if I had not been sitting by her side in that nar- 


THE VIATICUM 


21 


row conveyance, but stifled her sobs with her pock- 
et-handkerchief, muttered a few incoherent words, 
and occasionally trembled from head to foot. Her 
lover’s name rose to her lips as if it had been a 
response in a litany, and I thought that she was 
praying to the Virgin that she might not arrive too 
late to see Ladislas Ferkoz again in the possession 
of his faculties, and keep him alive for a few hours. 
Suddenly, as if in reply to herself, she said : ‘ I 

will not cry any more; he must see me looking 
beautiful, so that he may remember me, even in 
death ! ’ 

“ When we arrived I saw that we were expected, 
and that they had not doubted that the Empress 
would come to close her lover’s eyes with a last kiss. 
She left me there and hurried to Ladislas Ferkoz’s 
room, without even shutting the doors behind her. 
His beautiful, sensual gypsy head stood out from 
the whiteness of the pillows; but his face was quite 
bloodless, and there was no life left in it, except in 
his large strange eyes, that had a golden gleam, 
like the eyes of a clairvoyant or of a bearded vul- 
ture. 

“ The cold numbness of death had already taken 
possession of his robust body and paralyzed his lips 
and his arms, and he could not reply even by a 
sound of tenderness to Maria-Gloriosa’s wild lamen- 
tations and loving appeals. Neither reply nor smile, 
alas ! But his eyes dilated and glistened like the last 
flame that shoots up from an expiring fire, and filled 
with a world of dying thoughts, of divine recollec- 
tions, of delirious love. They appeared to envelop 


212 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


her in kisses, they spoke to her, they thanked her, 
they followed her movements, and seemed delighted 
at her grief. And as if she were replying to their 
mute supplications, as if she had understood them, 
Maria-Gloriosa suddenly tore off her lace, threw 
aside her fur cloak, and stood erect beside the dying 
man, whose eyes seemed to devour her, adorable in 
her supreme beauty, with her bare shoulders, her 
neck like alabaster and her fair hair, in which dia- 
monds glistened, surrounding her proud head, like 
that of the Goddess Diana, the huntress, and 
stretched her arms out toward him in an attitude of 
love, of tenderness, and of blessing. He looked at 
her in ecstasy, he feasted on her beauty, and seemed 
to be having a terrible struggle with death, in order 
that he might gaze at her, that apparition of love, a 
little longer, see her beyond the eternal sleep and 
prolong this unexpected vision. And when he felt 
that it was all over with him, and that even his 
eyes were growing dim, two great tears rolled down 
his cheeks . . . 

“ When Maria-Gloriosa saw that he was dead she 
piously and devoutly kissed his lips and closed his 
eyes, like a priest, who closes the gold tabernacle 
after service in the evening after Benediction, and 
then, without exchanging a word, we returned 
through the darkness to the palace where the ball 
was still going on.” 

* * * * * * jjc 

There was a minute’s silence, and while Madame 
de Laumieres, who was very much touched by this 


THE VIATICUM 


213 


story and whose nerves were rather highly strung, 
was drying her tears behind her open fan, suddenly 
the harsh and shrill voices of the fast women who 
were returning from the Casino, by the strange 
irony of fate, struck up an idiotic song which was 
then in vogue : “ Oh ! the poor, oh ! the poor, oh ! 
the poor, dear girl ! ” 


CRASH 


L OVE is stronger than death, and consequently, 
also, than the greatest financial catastrophe. 
A young and by no means bad-looking son 
of Palestine, and one of the barons of the Almanac 
of the Ghetto, who had left the field covered with 
wounds in the last general engagement on the Stock 
Exchange, used to go very frequently to the Uni- 
versal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873, in order to 
divert his thoughts, and to console himself amid the 
varied scenes and the numerous objects of attrac- 
tion there. One day he met in the Russian section 
a newly married couple, who had a very old coat 
of arms, but on the other hand a very modest in- 
come. 

This latter circumstance had frequently embol- 
dened the stockbroker to make secret overtures to 
the delightful little lady, overtures which might 
have fascinated certain Viennese actresses, but 
which were sure to insult a respectable woman. 
The Baroness, whose name appeared in the Alma- 
nach de Gotha, therefore felt something very like 
hatred for the man from the Ghetto, and for a long 
time her pretty little head had been full of various 
plans of revenge. 

The stockbroker, who was really and even pas- 


CRASH 


215 


sionately in love with her, got close to her in the 
Exhibition buildings, which he could do all the more 
easily, since the little woman’s husband had taken 
to flight, foreseeing mischief, as soon as she went up 
to the showcase of a Russian fur dealer, before 
which she remained standing in rapture. 

“ Do look at that lovely fur,” the Baroness said, 
while her dark eyes expressed her pleasure ; “ I 
must have it.” 

But she looked at the white ticket on which the 
price was marked. 

“Four thousand roubles,” she said in despair; 
“ that is about six thousand florins.” 

“ Certainly,” he replied, “ but what of that ? It 
is a sum not worth mentioning in the presence of 
such a charming lady.” 

“ But my husband is not in a position ” 

“ Be less cruel than usual for once,” the man 
from the Ghetto said to the young woman in a low 
voice, “ and allow me to lay this sable skin at your 
feet.” 

“ I presume that you are joking.” 

“ Not I ” 

“ I think you must be joking, as I cannot think 
that you intend to insult me.” 

“ But, Baroness, I love you ” 

" That is one reason more why you should not 
make me angry.” 

“ But ” 

“ Oh ! I am in such a rage,” the energetic little 
woman said; “I could flog you as the ‘Venus in 
Fur ’ did her slave.” 


2l6 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ Let me be your slave,” the Stock Exchange 
Baron replied ardently, “ and I will gladly put up 
with everything from you. Really, in this sable 
cloak, and with a whip in your hand, you would 
make a most lovely picture of the heroine of that 
story.” 

The Baroness looked at the man for a moment 
with a peculiar smile. 

“ Then if I were to listen to you favourably, 
you would let me flog you?” she said after a 
pause. 

“ With pleasure.” 

“ Very well,” she replied quickly. “ You will let 
me give you twenty-five cuts with a whip, and may 
command me after the twenty-fifth blow.” 

“ Are you in earnest ? ” 

“ Fully.” 

The man from the Ghetto took her hand and 
pressed it ardently to his lips. 

“ When may I come ? ” 

“ To-morrow evening at eight o’clock.” 

“ And I may bring the sable cloak and the whip 
with me?” 

“ No, I will see about that myself.” 

The next evening the enamoured stockbroker 
came to the house of the charming little Baroness, 
and found her alone, lying on a couch, wrapped 
in a dark fur, while she held a dog whip in 
her small hand, which the man from the Ghetto 
kissed. 

“You know our agreement,” she began. 

“ Of course I do,” the Stock Exchange Baron 


CRASH 


217 


replied. “ I am to allow you to give me twenty- 
five cuts with the whip, and after the twenty-fifth 
you will listen to me.” 

“ Yes, but I am going to tie your hands first of 
all.” 

The amorous Baron quietly allowed this new De- 
lilah to tie his hands behind him, and then at her 
bidding, he knelt down before her, and she raised 
her whip and hit him hard. 

“ Oh ! That hurts me most confoundedly,” he 
exclaimed. 

“ I mean it to hurt you,” she said, with a mock- 
ing laugh, and went on thrashing him without 
mercy. At last the poor fool groaned with pain, 
but he consoled himself with the thought that each 
blow brought him nearer to his happiness. 

At the twenty-fourth cut she threw the whip 
down. 

“ That only makes twenty-four,” the beaten 
would-be Don Juan remarked. 

“ I will make you a present of the twenty-fifth,” 
she said, with a laugh. 

“ And now you are mine, altogether mine,” he 
exclaimed ardently. 

“ What are you thinking of ? ” 

“ Have I not let you beat me ? ” 

“ Certainly ; but I promised you to grant your 
wish after the twenty-fifth blow, and you have only 
received twenty-four,” the cruel little bit of virtue 
cried, “ and I have witnesses to prove it.” 

With these words she drew back the curtains 
over the door, and her husband, followed by two 


218 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


other gentlemen, came out of the next room, smil- 
ing. For a moment the stockbroker remained 
speechless on his knees before the beautiful woman ; 
then he gave a deep sigh, and sadly uttered that 
one most significant word: 

“ Crash!” 


A MESALLIANCE 


T HAT the prerogatives of the nobility are main- 
tained through the weakness of the middle 
classes is now generally acknowledged. 
Many of the latter, having through intelligence, 
industry, and struggle attained a condition of pros- 
perity, become, as it were, intoxicated when they 
are introduced into aristocratic society and are seen 
in the company of Barons or Counts, especially 
when the latter, for motives of their own, treat them 
as friends, as they see a prospect of their daughters 
being raised to the rank of Countess and driving in 
a carriage with armorial bearings. 

Many women and girls of the bourgeoisie would 
not hesitate for a moment to refuse an honourable 
good-looking man of their own class in order to go 
to the altar with the oldest, ugliest, and stupidest 
dotard among the aristocracy. 

I shall never forget saying in joke, shortly before 
her marriage, to a young, well-educated girl of a 
wealthy middle-class family, who had the figure and 
the bearing of a queen, not to forget an ermine cloak 
in her trousseau. 

“ I know it would suit me perfectly,” she replied 
in all seriousness, “ and I should certainly have worn 
one if I had married Baron R , which I came 


220 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


near doing, as you know, but it is not suitable for 
the wife of a government official.” 

When a girl of the middle class wanders from 
the paths of virtue her fall may, as a rule, be rightly 
ascribed to her hankering after the nobility. 

In a small German town there lived, some years 
ago, a tailor, whom we will call Lowenfuss, a man 
who, like all knights of the shears, was full of aspi- 
rations for culture and liberty. After working for 
one master for some time as a poor journeyman, he 
married his daughter, and after his father-in-law’s 
death, succeeded to his business, and as he was 
industrious, lucky, and managed it well, he soon be- 
came very prosperous, and was in a position to give 
his daughters an education which many a noble- 
man’s daughters might have envied them ; for they 
learned not only French and music, but also acquired 
many more solid branches of knowledge, and as 
they were both pretty and charming girls, they 
sopn became very much thought of and sought 
after. 

Fanny, the eldest, especially, was her father’s 
pride and the favourite of society. She was of mid- 
dle height, slim, with a thoroughly maidenly figure, 
and with almost an Italian face, in which two large, 
dark eyes seemed to ask for love and submission at 
the same time ; and yet the girl with the abundant 
black hair was not in the least intended to com- 
mand, for she was one of those romantic women 
who will give themselves, or even throw themselves, 
away, but who can never be subjugated. A young 
physician fell in love with her, and wished to marry 


A MESALLIANCE 


221 


her ; Fanny returned his love, and her parents gladly 
accepted him as a son-in-law, but she made it a 
condition that he should visit her freely and fre- 
quently for two years, before she would consent to 
become his wife, and she declared that she would 
not go to the altar with him until she was convinced 
that not only their hearts but also that their charac- 
ters harmonized. He agreed to her wish, and be- 
came a regular visitor at the house of the tailor. 
Those were happy hours for the lovers ; they played, 
sang, and read together, and he told the girl some 
things from his medical experiences which excited 
and moved her. 

One day an officer went to the tailor’s house to 
order some civilian’s clothes. This was not an un- 
usual event in itself, but it was soon to be the cause 
of one; for accidentally the daughter of the artist 
in clothes came into the shop just as the officer was 
leaving it, and on seeing her, he let go of the door 
handle, and asked the tailor who the young lady 
was. 

“ My daughter,” the tailor said proudly. 

“ May I beg you to introduce me to the young 
lady, Herr Lowenfuss ? ” the hussar said. 

“ I feel flattered at the honour you are doing me,” 
the tailor replied, with evident pleasure. 

“ Fanny, the captain wishes to make your ac- 
quaintance; this is my daughter Fanny, Cap- 
tain ” 

“ Captain Count Kasimir W ,” the hussar in- 

terrupted him, as he went up to the pretty girl, and 
paid her a compliment or two. They were very 


222 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


commonplace, stale, everyday phrases, but they flat- 
tered the girl, intelligent as she was, extremely, 
because it was a cavalry officer and a Count to boot 
who addressed them to her. And when at last the 
captain in the most friendly manner asked the tail- 
or’s permission to be allowed to visit at his house, 
both father and daughter granted his request most 
readily. 

The very next day Count W paid his visit, 

in full-dress uniform, and when Mamma Lowenfuss 
made some remarks about it, how handsome it was, 
and how well it became him, he told them that he 
should not wear it much longer, as he intended to 
quit the service soon, and to look for a wife, in 
whom birth and wealth were matters of secondary 
consideration, while a good education and a knowl- 
edge of domestic matters were of paramount impor- 
tance ; adding that as soon as he had found such an 
one he meant to retire to his estates. 

From that moment Papa and Mamma Lowen- 
fuss looked upon the Count as their daughter’s sui- 
tor. It is certain that he was madly in love with 
Fanny ; he used to go to their house every evening 
and made himself so liked by all of them that the 
young doctor soon felt he was in the way, and his 
visits became rarer and rarer. The Count confessed 
his love to Fanny on a moonlight night, while they 
were sitting in an arbour covered with honeysuckle, 
which was about the extent of Herr Lowenfuss’s 
garden ; he swore that he loved, that he adored her, 
and when at last he took her in his arms the good- 
looking hussar found out for the first time in his 


A MESALLIANCE 


223 


life that a woman can at the same time be romantic, 
passionately in love, and yet virtuous. 

The next morning the tailor called on the Count 
and begged him very humbly to state what his inten- 
tions were with regard to Fanny. The enamoured 
hussar declared that he was determined to make 

the tailor’s little daughter Countess W . Herr 

Lowenfuss was so much overcome by his feelings 
that he showed great inclination to embrace his 
future son-in-law. The Count, however, laid down 
certain conditions. The whole matter must be kept 
a profound secret, for he had every prospect of 
inheriting half a million of florins on the death of 
an aunt, who was already eighty years old, and he 
should risk losing it by a mesalliance. 

When they heard this, the girl’s parents certainly 
hesitated for a time to give their consent to the 
marriage, but the handsome hussar, whose ardent 
passion carried Fanny away, at last gained the vic- 
tory. The doctor received a pretty little note from 
the tailor’s daughter, in which she told him that she 
gave him back his promise, as she had not found 
her ideal in him. Fanny then signed a deed, by 
which she formally renounced all claims to her 
father’s property, in favour of her sister, and left 
her home and her father’s house with the Count 
under cover of the night, in order to accompany 
him to Poland, where the marriage was to take place 
in his castle. 

Of course malicious tongues declared that the 
hussar had abducted Fanny, but her parents smiled 
at such reports, for they knew better, and the mo- 


224 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ment when their daughter should return as Countess 
W would amply recompense them for every- 

thing. 

Meanwhile the Polish Count and the romantic 
German girl were being carried by the train 
through the dreary plains of Masovia. They stopped 
in a large town to make some purchases, and the 
Count, who was very wealthy and liberal, provided 
his future wife with everything that befits a Count- 
ess and all that a girl could fancy, and then they 
continued their journey. The country grew more 
picturesque but more melancholy as they went far- 
ther East; the sombre Carpathians rose from the 
snow-covered plains, and villages, surrounded by 
white glistening walls, and stunted willows stood 
by the side of the roads, ravens sailed through the 
white sky, and here and there a small peasant’s 
sledge shot by, drawn by two thin horses. 

At last they reached the station where the Count’s 
steward was waiting for them with a carriage and 
four, which brought them to their destination almost 
as swiftly as the train. 

The numerous servants were drawn up in the 
yard of the ancient castle to receive their master 
and mistress, and they gave loud cheers for her, for 
which she thanked them, smiling. When she went 
into the dim arched passages and the large rooms, 
for a moment she felt a strange feeling of fear, but 
she quickly checked it, for was not her most ardent 
wish to be fulfilled in a couple of hours? 

She put on her bridal attire, in which a half-com- 
ical, half-sinister-looking old woman with a tooth- 


A MESALLIANCE 


225 


less mouth and a nose like an owl’s assisted her, 
and just as she was fixing the myrtle leaf on her 
dark curls, the bell began to ring which summoned 
her to her wedding. The Count himself, in full uni- 
form, led her to the chapel of the castle, where the 
priest, with the steward and the castellan as wit- 
nesses, and the footmen in grand liveries, were 
awaiting the handsome young couple. 

After the wedding the marriage certificate was 
signed in the vestry, and a groom was sent to the 
station, where he dispatched a telegram to her par- 
ents, to the effect that the hussar had kept his word, 
and that Fanny Lowenfuss had become Countess 
Faniska W . 

Then the newly married couple sat down to a 
delicious little dinner in company of the chaplain, 
the steward and the castellan ; the champagne made 
them all very cheerful, and at last the Count knelt 
down before his young and beautiful wife, boldly 
took her white satin slipper off her foot, filled it 
with wine, and emptied it to her health. 

At length night came, a thorough Polish wedding 
night, and Faniska had just finished dressing and 
was looking at herself with proud satisfaction in 
the great mirror that was fastened into the wall, 
from top to bottom. A white satin train floated 
behind her with a sheen as of moonlight; a half- 
open jacket of bright green velvet, trimmed with 
valuable ermine, covered her rounded bust and her 
classic arms, only to reveal them all the more seduc- 
tively at the slightest motion, while the wealth of 
her dark hair, in which hung diamonds here and 


226 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


there like glittering dewdrops, fell down her neck 
and mingled with the white fur. The Count came 
in in a red velvet dressing-gown trimmed with 
sable; at a sign from him the old woman who was 
waiting on his wife’s divinity left the room, and the 
next moment he was lying a slave at the feet of his 
lovely young wife. Suddenly a noise which she had 
never heard before, a wild howling, startled the 
loving woman in the midst of her happiness. 

“ What was that ? ” she asked, trembling. 

The Count went to the window without speaking, 
and she followed him with her arm round him, and 
looked half timidly, half curiously out into the dark- 
ness, where large bright spots were moving about 
in pairs, in the park at her feet. 

“ Are they will-o’-the-wisps ? ” she whispered. 

“ No, my child, they are wolves,” the Count re- 
plied, fetching his double-barreled gun, which he 
loaded, and went out on the snow-covered balcony, 
while she drew the fur more closely over her bosom 
and followed him. 

“Will you shoot?” the Count asked her in a 
whisper, and when she nodded he said : “ Aim 

straight at the first pair of bright spots that you 
see ; they are the eyes of those amiable brutes.” 

Then he handed her the gun and pointed it for 
her. 

“ That is the way — are you aiming straight ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then fire.” 

A flash, a report, and two of the unpleasant-look- 
ing lights had vanished. 


A MESALLIANCE 


227 


Then the Count fired, and by that time their peo- 
ple were all awake; they drove away the wolves 
with torches and shouts, and laid the two large ani- 
mals, the spoils of a Polish wedding night, at the 
feet of their young mistress. 

The days that followed resembled that one. The 
Count showed himself the most attentive husband, 
and was his wife’s knight and slave. She felt quite 
at home in that dull castle ; she rode, drove, smoked, 
read French novels, and beat her servants as well 
as any Polish Countess could have done. In the 
course of a few years she presented the Count with 
two children, and although he appeared very happy 
at the time, yet, like most husbands, he grew con- 
tinually cooler, more indolent, and neglectful of her. 
From time to time he left the castle, to see after 
his affairs in the capital, and the intervals between 
those journeys became continually shorter. Faniska 
felt that her husband was tired of her, and, much 
as it grieved her, she did not let him notice it ; she 
was always the same. 

But at last the Count remained away altogether; 
at first he used to write, but at last the poor, weep- 
ing woman did not even receive letters to comfort 
her in her unhappy solitude, and his lawyer sent 
the money that she and the children required. 

She conjectured, hoped, and doubted, suffered 
and wept for more than a year; then she suddenly 
went to the capital and appeared unexpectedly in 
his apartments. Painful explanations followed, un- 
til at last the Count told her that he no longer 
loved her, and could not live with her for the 


228 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


future, and when she wished to make him do so by 
legal means, and intrusted her case to a celebrated 
lawyer, the Count denied that she was his wife. 
She produced her marriage certificate, when the 
most infamous fraud came to light. A confidential 
servant of the Count had acted the part of the 
priest, and the tailor’s beautiful daughter had, as 
a matter of fact, merely been the Count’s mistress 
and her children were illegitimate. 

The virtuous woman then saw, when it was too 
late, that it was she who had formed a mesalliance. 
Her parents would have nothing to do with her, 
and at last it turned out in the bargain that the 
Count was married long before he knew her, but 
that he did not live with his wife. 

Then Fanny applied to the police magistrates ; 
she wanted to appeal to justice, but she was dis- 
suaded from taking criminal proceedings; for al- 
though they would certainly lead to the punishment 
of her daring seducer, they would also bring about 
her own total ruin. 

At last, however, her lawyer effected a settle- 
ment between them which was favourable to Fanny 
and which she accepted for the sake of her chil- 
dren. The Count paid her a considerable sum 
down and gave her the gloomy castle to live in. 
Thither she returned with a broken heart, and 
from that time she lived alone, a sullen misan- 
thrope, a fierce despot. 

From time to time a stranger wandering 
through the Carpathians meets a pale woman of 
demoniac beauty, wearing a magnificent sable 


A MESALLIANCE 


229 


jacket, with a gun over her shoulder, in the forest 
in summer, or in the winter in a sleigh, driving 
her foaming horses until they nearly drop from 
fatigue, while the sleigh bells utter a melancholy 
sound, and at last die away in the distance, like the 
weeping of a solitary, deserted human heart. 


THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 


A BOUT twenty years ago, in Senichou, a 
suburb of Prague, lived a poor, honest 
couple who earned their bread by the sweat 
of their brow, the husband working in a large 
printing establishment, while his wife employed her 
spare time as a laundress. Their pride, and their 
only delight, was their daughter, Viteska, a vigor- 
ous, voluptuous-looking, handsome girl of eighteen, 
whom they brought up well and carefully. She 
worked for a dressmaker, and was thus able to help 
her parents a little, and she made use of her leisure 
moments in improving her education, and especially 
her music. She was a general favourite in the 
neighbourhood, and was looked upon as a model 
by the whole suburb. 

When she went to town to her work the tall girl, 
with her magnificent head like that of an ancient 
Bohemian Amazon, with its wealth of black hair, 
and her dark, sparkling yet soft eyes, attracted the 
looks of passers-by, in spite of her shabby dress, 
more than did the graceful, well-dressed ladies of 
the aristocracy. Frequently some young, wealthy 
idler would follow her home, and even try to get 
into conversation with her, but she always man- 


THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 


23I 


aged to get rid of them and their importunities, 
and did not require any escort, for she was quite 
capable of protecting herself from any insults. 

One evening, however, on the suspension bridge, 
she met a man whose strange appearance made her 
glance at him with some interest, but perhaps with 
even more surprise. He was tall and handsome, 
with bright eyes and a black beard; he was very 
sunburned, and in his long coat, resembling a caf- 
tan, with a red fez on his head, he gave one the 
impression of an Oriental. He had noticed her 
glance all the more as he himself had been so 
struck by her poor, and at the same time regal, 
appearance that he remained standing and looking 
at her as if he were devouring her with his eyes, 
so that Viteska, who was usually so fearless, cast 
down her eyes. She hurried on and he followed her, 
and the quicker she walked the more rapidly he 
followed, and at last, when they were in a narrow, 
dark street in the suburb, he suddenly said, in an 
insinuating voice : “ May I offer you my arm, my 

pretty girl ? ” 

“ You can see that I am old enough to look after 
myself,” Viteska replied hastily ; “I am much 
obliged to you, and must beg you not to follow me 
any more ; I am known in this neighbourhood, and 
it might injure my reputation.” “ Oh, you are 
very much mistaken if you think you will get rid of 
me so easily,” he replied. “ I have just come from 
the East and am returning there soon. Come with 
me, and as I believe that you are as sensible as 
you are beautiful you will certainly make yout for- 


232 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


tune there, and I will warrant that before the 
end of a year you will be covered with dia- 
monds, and be waited on by eunuchs and female 
slaves.” 

“I am a respectable girl, sir,” she replied 
proudly, and tried to go ahead of him, but the 
strariger was immediately at her side again. “ You 
were born to rule,” he whispered to her. “ Believe 
me, and I understand the matter, that you will 
live to be a sultana, if you have any luck.” 

The girl did not give him any answer, but 
walked on. 

“ But, at any rate, listen to me,” the tempter 
continued. 

“ I will not listen to anything. Because I am 
poor you think it will be easy for you to tempt 
me.” Viteska exclaimed ; “ but I am as virtuous as 
I am poor, and I should despise any position which 
I had to buy with my shame.” They had reached 
the little house where her parents lived, and she ran 
in quickly and slammed the door behind her. 

When she went into town the next morning the 
stranger was waiting at the corner of the street 
where she lived, and bowed to her very respect- 
fully. “ Allow me to speak a few words to you,” 
he began. “ I feel that I ought to beg your par- 
don for my behaviour yesterday.” 

“ Please let me go on my way quietly,” the girl 
replied. “ What will the neighbours think of 
me? ” 

“ I did not know you,” he went on, without pay- 
ing any attention to her angry looks, “but your 


THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 


233 


extraordinary beauty attracted me. Now that I 
know that you are as good as you are charming 
I wish very much to become better acquainted with 
you. Believe me, I have the most honourable in- 
tentions.” 

Unfortunately the bold stranger had taken the 
girl’s fancy, and she could not find it in her heart 
to refuse him. “ If you are really in earnest,” she 
stammered, in charming confusion, “ do not follow 
me about in the public streets, but come to my 
parents’ house like a man of honour, and state your 
intentions there.” 

“ I will certainly do so, and immediately, if you 
like,” the stranger replied eagerly. 

“ No, no,” Viteska said ; “ but come this even- 
ing, if you like.” 

The stranger bowed and left her, and really 
called on her parents the same evening. He intro- 
duced himself as Ireneus Krisapolis, a merchant of 
Smyrna, spoke of his brilliant circumstances, and 
finally declared that he loved Viteska pas- 
sionately. 

“ That is all very well,” the cautious father re- 
plied, “but what will it all lead to? Under no 
circumstances can I allow you to visit my daugh- 
ter. Such a passion as yours often dies out as 
quickly as it rises, and a respectable girl is easily 
robbed of her virtue.” 

“ And suppose I make up my mind to marry 
your daughter?” the stranger asked, after a mo- 
ment’s hesitation. 

“ Then I shall refer you to my child, for I shall 


234 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


never force Viteska to marry against her will,” 
her father said. 

The stranger seized the pretty girl’s hand, and 
spoke in glowing terms of his love for her, of the 
luxury with which she would be surrounded in his 
house, of the wonders of the East, to which he 
hoped to take her, and at last Viteska consented to 
become his wife. Thereupon the stranger hurried 
on the arrangements for the wedding in a manner 
that made the most favourable impression on them 
all, and during the time before their marriage he 
lay at her feet like her humble slave. 

As soon as they were married the newly mar- 
ried couple set off on their journey to Smyrna and 
promised to write as soon as they got there. But 
a month, then two and three, passed without the 
parents receiving a line from them, and as their 
anxiety increased every day the father, in terror, 
finally applied to the police. 

The first thing was to write to the Consul at 
Smyrna for information. His reply was to the ef- 
fect that no merchant of the name of Ireneus 
Krisapolis was known in Smyrna, and that he had 
never been there. The police, at the entreaties of 
the frantic parents, continued their investigations, 
but for a long time without any result. At last, 
however, they obtained a little light on the subject, 
but it was not at all satisfactory. The police at 
Pesth said that a man whose personal appearance 
exactly agreed with the description of Viteska’s 
husband had a short time before carried off two 
girls from the Hungarian capital to Turkey, evi- 


THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 


235 


dently intending to trade in that coveted, valuable 
commodity there, but that when he found that the 
authorities were on his track he had escaped from 
justice by a sudden flight. 

******* 

Four years after Viteska’s mysterious disap- 
pearance, two persons, a man and a woman, met 
in a narrow street in Damascus just as the Greek 
merchant had met Viteska on the suspension bridge 
at Prague. The man with the black beard, the red 
fez, and the long green caftan was no other than 
Ireneus Krisapolis. Matters appeared to be going 
well with him. He had his hands comfortably 
thrust into the red shawl which he wore round his 
waist, and a negro was walking behind him with a 
large parasol, while another carried his chiloque. 
A noble Turkish lady in a litter borne by four 
slaves met him ; her face was covered with a white 
veil, all except a pair of large dark eyes that 
flashed threateningly at the merchant. 

He smiled, for he thought that he had found 
favour in the eyes of an Eastern houri, and that flat- 
tered him; but soon he lost sight of her in the 
crowd, and forgot her almost immediately. The 
next morning, however, a eunuch of the Pasha’s 
called on him, to his no small astonishment, and 
told him to come with him. He took him to the 
Sultan’s most powerful deputy, who ruled as an 
absolute despot in Damascus. They went through 
dark narrow passages, and curtains were pushed 


236 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


aside which rustled as they closed behind him. At 
last they reached a large rotunda in the centre of 
which was a beautiful fountain, and scarlet divans 
were placed all round it. Here the eunuch told the 
merchant to wait, and left him. He was puzzling 
his brains to know what the meaning of it all could 
be, when suddenly a tall, commanding woman came 
into the apartment. Again a pair of large, threat- 
ening eyes looked at him through the veil, and he 
knew from her green, gold-embroidered caftan that 
if it was not the Pasha’s wife it was at least one 
of his favourites who was before him. He hurriedly 
knelt down, and, crossing his hands on his breast, 
put his forehead to the ground before her. But a 
clear, mocking laugh made him look up, and when 
the beautiful odalisque threw back her veil he ut- 
tered a cry of terror, for his wife, his deceived wife 
whom he had sold, was standing before him. 

“ Do you know me ? ” she asked, with quiet 
dignity. 

“ Viteska ! ” 

“Yes, that was my name when I was your 
wife,” she replied quickly, in a contemptuous 
voice ; “ but now that I am the Pasha’s wife my 
name is Sarema. I do not suppose you ever ex- 
pected to find me again, you wretch, when you 
sold me in Varna to an old Jewish profligate who 
was only half alive. You see I have got into better 
hands, and I have made my fortune, as you said I 
should do. Well? What do you expect of me; 
what thanks, what reward ? ” 

The wretched man was lying, overwhelmed with 


!THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 237 

confusion, at the feet of the woman whom he had 
so shamefully deceived, and could not find a word 
to say ; he felt that he was lost, and had not even 
the courage to beg for mercy. 

“ You deserve death, you miscreant/’ Sarema 
continued. “ You are in my hands and I can do 
whatever I please with you, for the Pasha has left 
your punishment to me alone. I ought to have you 
impaled, and to feast my eyes on your death ago- 
nies. That would be the smallest compensation for 
all the years of degradation that I have been 
through, and which I owe to you.” 

The wretched man cried, trembling all over and 
raising his hands to her in supplication : “ Mercy, 
Viteska ! Mercy ! ” 

The odalisque’s only reply was a laugh in 
which rang all the cruelty of an insulted woman’s 
deceived heart. It seemed to give her pleasure to 
see the man whom she had loved and who had so 
shamefully trafficked in her beauty, in his abase- 
ment as he cringed before her, whining for his life 
as he clung to her knees ; but at last she seemed to 
relent somewhat. 

“ I will give you your life, you miserable 
wretch,” she said, “but you shall not go unpun- 
ished.” So saying, she clapped her hands, and 
four black eunuchs came in and seized the fa- 
vourite’s unfortunate husband, and in a moment 
bound his hands and feet. 

“ I have changed my mind and he shall not be 
put to death,” Sarema said, with a smile that made 
the traitor’s blood run cold in his veins ; “ but give 


238 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


him a hundred blows with the bastinado, and I will 
stand by and count them.” 

“ For God’s sake,” the merchant screamed, “ I 
can never endure it.” 

“ We will see about that,” the favourite said 
coldly, “ and if you die under it it is allotted you 
by fate ; I am not going to retract my orders.” 

She threw herself down on the cushions and be- 
gan to smoke a long pipe which a female slave 
handed to her on her knees. At a sign from her 
the eunuchs tied the wretched man’s feet to the 
pole by which the soles of the culprit were raised, 
and began the terrible punishment. At the tenth 
blow the merchant began to roar like a wild ani- 
mal, but his wife, whom he had betrayed, remained 
unmoved, carelessly blowing blue wreaths of smoke 
into the air, and, resting on her lovely arm, she 
watched his features, distorted by pain, with mer- 
ciless enjoyment. 

During the last blows he only groaned feebly, 
and then fainted. 

***** * * 

A year later the dealer was caught with his fe- 
male merchandise by the police in an Austrian 
town and handed over to justice, when he made a 
full confession, and by that means the parents of 
the Odalisque of Senichou heard of their daugh- 
ter’s position. As they knew that she was happy 
and surrounded by luxury, they made no attempt 
to get her out of the hands of the Pasha, who, like 


THE ODALISQUE OF SENICHOU 


239 


a thorough Mussulman, had become a slave of his 
slave. 

The unfortunate husband was sent across the 
frontier when he was released from prison. His 
shameful traffic, however, flourishes still in spite of 
all the precautions of the police and of the consuls, 
and every year he provides the harems of the East 
with those voluptuous Boxclanas, especially from 
Bohemia and Hungary, who, in the eyes of a Mus- 
sulman, vie for the prize of beauty with the slen- 
der Circassian women. 


A GOOD MATCH 


T HE young sergeant of hussars, Max B , 

had nothing better to do in the afternoon 
when he was off duty than to drink a glass 
of beer and listen to a new waltz. Strauss' band 
was playing in the hall of the Horticultural Society, 
which was so crowded that the young cadet could 
not find a seat. Presently the head waiter, who 
knew him, quickly took him to an unoccupied place, 
and without waiting for his orders brought him a 
glass of beer. A very gentlemanly looking man 
and three elegantly dressed ladies were sitting at 
the table. 

The cadet saluted them with military politeness 
and sat down, but almost before he could put the 
glass to his lips he noticed that the two older la- 
dies, who apppeared to be married, appeared an- 
noyed at his taking a seat at their table, and even 
said a few words which he could not catch but 
which no doubt referred unpleasantly to him. “ I 
am afraid I am in the way here,” the cadet said, 
and he got up to leave, when he felt a pull at his 
sabre-tasche beneath the table, and at the same 
time the gentleman felt bound to say, with some 
embarrassment : “ Oh ! not at all ; on the contrary 


A GOOD MATCH 


241 


we are very pleased that you have chosen this ta- 
ble.” 

Thereupon the cadet resumed his seat, not so 
much because he took the gentleman’s invitation as 
sincere, but because the silent request to remain 
which he had received under the table, and which 
was much more sincerely meant, had raised in him 
with electrical rapidity one of those charming illu- 
sions which are so frequent in our youth and which 
promise so much happiness. He could not doubt 
for a moment that the daring invitation came from 
the third, the youngest and prettiest, of the ladies, 
into whose company a fortunate accident had 
thrown him. 

From the moment that he had sat down by her, 
however, she did not deign to bestow even another 
look on him, much less a word, and to the young 
hussar, who was still rather inexperienced in such 
matters, this seemed rather strange; but he pos- 
sessed enough natural tact not to expose himself to 
a rebuff by any hasty advances, but quietly awaited 
further developments. This gave him the oppor- 
tunity of looking at the young lady more closely, 
and he did so when their attention was diverted 
from him and they were conversing among them- 
selves. 

The girl, whom the others called Angelica, was 
a thorough Viennese beauty, not regularly beauti- 
ful, for her features were not Roman or Greek, and 
not even strictly German, and yet they possessed 
every female charm, and were seductive in the full- 
est sense of the word. Her strikingly small nose, 


242 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


which in a lady’s maid might have been called im- 
pudent, and her little mouth with its voluptuously 
full lips, which would have been called sensual in 
an ordinary person, imparted an indescribably 
piquant charm to her small head, which was sur- 
mounted by an imposing tower of that soft brown 
hair which is so characteristic of Viennese women. 
Her bright eyes were full of intelligence and a 
merry smile lurked continually in the most charm- 
ing little dimples near her mouth and on her chin. 

In less than a quarter of an hour our cadet was 
fettered, with no more will of his own than a slave, 
to the triumphal chariot of this delightful little 
creature, and as he hoped and believed — forever. 
And he was a man worth capturing. He was tall 
and slim, though muscular, and looked like an ath- 
lete, and at the same time he had one of those 
handsome, open faces which women like so much. 
His honest dark eyes showed strength of will, 
courage, and strong passions, and that women also 
admire. 

During an interval in the music an elderly gen- 
tleman, with the ribbon of an order in his button- 
hole, came up to the table, and from the manner in 
which he greeted them it was evident that he was 
an old friend. From their conversation, which was 
carried on in a very loud tone of voice and with 
much animation in the bad form of the Viennese, 
the cadet gathered that the gentleman who was 
with the ladies was a Councillor of Legation, and 
that the eldest lady was his wife, while the second 
lady was his married, and the youngest his unmar- 


A GOOD MATCH 


243 


ried, sister-in-law. When they at last rose to go, 
the pretty girl, evidently intentionally, put her vel- 
vet jacket trimmed with valuable sable very loosely 
over her shoulders; then she remained standing at 
the exit and slowly put it on, so that the cadet had 
an opportunity to get close to her. “ Follow us,” 
she whispered to him, and then ran after the others. 

The cadet was only too glad to obey her direc- 
tions and followed them at a distance, without be- 
ing observed, to the house where they lived. A 
week passed without his seeing the pretty Angelica 
again, or without her giving him any indication of 
her existence. The waiter in the Horticultural So- 
ciety’s grounds, of whom he inquired about them, 
could tell him nothing more than that they were 
people of position. A few days later the cadet saw 
them all again at a concert, but he was satisfied 
with looking at his ideal from a distance. She, 
however, when she could do so without danger, 
gave him one of those coquettish looks which inex- 
perienced young men imagine express the inner- 
most feelings of a pure virgin heart. On this oc- 
casion she left the grounds with her sisters much 
earlier, and as she passed the handsome cadet she 
let fall a small pellet of paper, which only con- 
tained the words : “ Come at ten o’clock to-night, 

and ring the bell.” 

He was outside the house at the stroke of ten, 
and rang, but his astonishment knew no bounds 
when, instead of Angelica or her confidential maid, 
the housekeeper opened the door. She saw his 
confusion and quickly put an end to it by taking 


244 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


his hand and pulling him into the house. “ Come 
with me,” she whispered ; “ I know all about it. 
The young lady will be here directly, so come 
along.” Then she led him through the kitchen into 
a room which was shut off from the rest of the 
house, and which she had apparently furnished for 
similar meetings, on her own account, and left him 
there by himself, and the cadet was rather sur- 
prised at sight of the elegant furniture, the wide, 
soft couch, and some rather obscene pictures in 
broad gilt frames. In a few minutes the beautiful 
girl came in, and without any further ceremony 
threw her arms round the young soldier’s neck. 
In her negligee she appeared to him much more 
beautiful than in her elegant outdoor dress', but 
the virginal fragrance which then pervaded her had 
given way to that voluptuous atmosphere which 
surrounds a young newly married woman. 

Angelica, whose little feet were incased in blue 
velvet slippers lined with ermine, and who was 
wrapped in a richly embroidered white robe de 
chambre trimmed with lace, drew the handsome 
cadet down on to the couch with graceful energy, 
and almost before he exactly knew what he had 
come for she was his, and the young soldier, who 
was half dazed at his unexpected victory and good 
fortune, did not leave her until after twelve o’clock. 
He returned every night at ten, rang the bell, and 
was admitted by the girl’s slyly smiling confidante, 
and a few moments later was clasping his little 
goddess, who used to wrap her delicate white 
limbs sometimes in dark sable and at others in 


A GOOD MATCH 


245 


princely ermine. Every time they partook of a de- 
licious supper, laughed and joked, and loved each 
other as only young, good-lOoking people do love, 
and frequently they entertained one another until 
morning. 

Once the cadet attempted diffidently to pay the 
housekeeper for her services, and also for the sup- 
per, but she refused his money with a laugh, and 
said that everything was already settled; and the 
young soldier had revelled in this manner in bound- 
less bliss for four months when, by an unfortunate 
accident, he met his mistress in the street one day. 
She was alone, but in spite of this she contracted 
her delicate, finely arched eyebrows angrily when 
he was about to speak to her and turned her head 
away. This hurt the honest young fellow’s feel- 
ings, and when that evening she drew him to her 
bosom, that was rising and falling tempestuously 
under the black velvet that covered it, he remon- 
strated with her quietly but emphatically. She 
made a little grimace, and looking at him coldly 
and angrily, she at last said shortly : “ I forbid you 
to take any notice of me out of doors. I do 
not choose to recognize you ; do you under- 
stand?” 

The cadet was surprised, and did not reply, but 
the harmony of his pleasures was destroyed by a 
harsh discord. For some time he bore his misery 
in silence and with resignation, but at last the sit- 
uation became unendurable ; his mistress’ fiery 
kisses seemed to mock him, and the pleasure which 
she gave him to degrade him, so at last he sum- 


246 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


moned up courage, and in his open way he came 
straight to the point. 

“ What do you think of our future, Angelica ? ” 
She wrinkled her brows a little. 

“ Do not let us talk about it ; at any rate not 
to-day.” 

“Why not? We must talk about it sooner or 
later,” he replied, “ and I think it is high time for 
me to explain my intentions to you if I do not 
wish to appear as a dishonourable scoundrel in your 
eyes.” 

She looked at him in surprise. “ I look upon 
you as one of the best and most honourable of men, 
Max,” she said soothingly, after a pause. 

“ And do you trust me, also ? ” 

“ Of course I do.” 

“ Are vou convinced that I love you honestly ? ” 

“ Quite.” 

“ Then do not hesitate any longer to bestow 
your hand upon me,” her lover said, in conclusion. 

“ What are you thinking about ? ” she cried 
quickly, in a tone of refusal. 

“ What is to be the end of our connection ? 
What is at any rate not permissible with a woman 
is wrong and dishonourable with a girl. You your- 
self must feel lowered if you do not become my 
wife as soon as possible.” 

“ What a narrow-minded view ! ” Angelica re- 
plied angrily; “but as you wish it I will give you 
my opinion on the subject, but ... by letter.” 

“ No, no ; now, directly.” 

The pretty girl did not speak for some time, 


A GOOD MATCH 


247 


and looked down, but suddenly she looked at her 
lover, and a malicious, mocking smile lurked in the 
comers of her mouth. “ Well, I love you, Max, I 
love you really and ardently,” she said carelessly; 
“ but I can never be your wife. If you were an 
officer I might perhaps marry you ; yes, I certainly 
would, but as it is, it is impossible.” 

“ Is that your last word ? ” the cadet said, in 
great excitement. 

She only nodded, and then put her full, white 
arms round his neck with all the security of a mis- 
tress who is granting some favour to her slave ; but 
on that occasion she was mistaken. He sprang up, 
seized his sword, and hurried out of the room, and 
she let him go, for she felt certain that he would 
come back again, but he did not do so, and when 
she wrote to him he did not answer her letters, and 
still did not come; so at last she gave him up. 

It was a bad, very bad, experience for the hon- 
ourable young fellow; the highborn, frivolous girl 
had trampled on all the ideals and illusions of his 
life with her small feet, for he then saw only too 
clearly that she had not loved him, but that he had 
only served her pleasures and her lusts, while he, 
he had loved her so truly. 

******* 

About a year after the catastrophe with charm- 
ing Angelica the handsome young cadet happened 
to be in his captain’s quarters, and accidentally saw 
a large photograph of a lady on his writing table. 


248 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and on going up and looking at it he recognized — 
Angelica. 

“ What a beautiful girl ! ” he said, wishing to 
find out how the land lay. 

“ That is the lady I am to marry,” said the cap- 
tain, whose vanity was flattered; “ and she. is as 
pure and as good as an angel, just as she is as 
beautiful as one, and into the bargain she comes of 
a very good and very rich family; in short, in the 
fullest sense of the word, she is ‘ a good match/ ” 


A FASHIONABLE WOMAN 


A LTHOUGH it is easy to show that Austria 
is far richer in men of genius in every do- 
main than Northern Germany, yet, lacking 
any special technical training, very few of them 
become more than mere dilettanti. They receive, 
however, the same systematic military education 
for their chosen vocation as do the Prussian 
soldiers. 

Leo Wolfram was one of those intellectual dil- 
ettanti, and the more pleasure one took in his ma- 
terial characters, which were usually taken bodily 
from real life, and in a certain political, and what 
is still more, in a plastic plot, the more he was 
obliged to regret that he had never learned to com- 
pose, or to delineate character, or to write; in one 
word, that he had never become a literary artist. 
That he had in him the making of a master in the 
art of narration is proved by his Dissolving Views 
and by his Goldkind. 

Goldkind, the heroine, is a striking type of our 
modern society, and the novel contains all the ele- 
ments of a classic novel, although in a crude, un- 
finished state. How exactly Leo Wolfram por- 
trayed the conditions of our society is shown in 


250 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the following reminiscences in which an Austrian 
woman plays the chief part. 

It may be about ten years ago that every day 
four stylishly dressed persons, who caused much 
comment there and elsewhere, dined at a table in 
one corner of the small dining-room of one of the 
best hotels in Vienna. They were an Austrian 
landowner, his charming wife, and two young 
diplomatists, one of whom came from the North 
while the other was a son of the South. There was 
no doubt that the lady was the centre of general 
interest. 

The practised and discriminating observer of 
human nature easily recognized in her one of those 
characters which Goethe has so aptly named “ enig- 
matical. ,, They are always dissatisfied and at vari- 
ance with themselves and the world, are a riddle to 
themselves, and can never be relied on. With 
these interesting and captivating, though unfortu- 
nate, contradictions in her nature, she made a 
strong impression on everybody, even by her mere 
outward appearance. She was one of those women 
who are called beautiful, without being really so. 
Her face, as well as her figure, was lacking in 
esthetic lines, but there was no doubt that, in spite 
of that, or perhaps on that very account, she was 
the most dangerous, fascinating woman that one 
could imagine. 

She was tall and thin, with a certain hardness 
about her figure which became a charm through the 
vivacity and grace of her movements ; her features 
harmonized with her figure, for she had a high, 


A FASHIONABLE WOMAN 


251 


clever, cold forehead, a strong mouth with sensual 
lips, and an angular, sharp chin, the effect of which 
was, however, diminished by her slightly tilted 
small nose, her beautifully arched eyebrows, and 
her large, animated, liquid blue eyes. 

In her face, which was almost too expressive 
for a woman, there was as much feeling, kindness, 
and candour as there was calculation, coolness, and 
deceit, and when she was angry and drew her up- 
per lip up, so as to show her dazzlingly white 
teeth, it had even a devilish look of wickedness 
and cruelty. She had strikingly beautiful long 
chestnut hair, which she wore braided and wound 
like a coronet on top of her head. Besides this, 
she was remarkable for her elegant taste in dress 
and a bearing which combined with the dignity of 
a lady of rank that undefinable something which 
makes actresses and women of the higher demi- 
monde so interesting to us. 

In Paris her respectability would have been 
questioned, but in Vienna the best drawing-rooms 
were open to her, and she was not looked upon as 
more or as less respectable than any other aristo- 
cratic beauties. 

Her husband decidedly belonged to that class of 
men whom that witty writer, Balzac, so delight- 
fully calls les hommes predestines in his Physi- 
ologie du Manage. Without doubt he was a very 
good-looking man, but he bore that stamp of insig- 
nificance which so often conceals coarseness and 
vulgarity, and was one of those men who, in the 
long run, become unendurable to a woman of re- 


252 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


fined tastes. He had a good private income, but 
his wife understood the art of enjoying life, and a 
deficit in the yearly accounts of the young couple 
became the rule, without causing the lively lady to 
check her aristocratic tastes in the least on that ac- 
count; she kept horses and carriages, was a fine 
horsewoman, had her box at the opera, and gave 
delightful little suppers, which at that time was the 
highest aim of a Viennese woman of her class. 

One of the two young diplomats who accom- 
panied her, a young Count belonging to a well- 
known family in North Germany, a gentleman in 
the highest sense of the word, was looked upon as 
her devoted admirer, while the other, who was his 
most intimate friend in spite of his ancient name 
and his position as attache of a foreign legation, 
gave people that vivid impression that he was an 
adventurer which makes the police keep such a 
careful eye on some persons; he had also the repu- 
tation of being an unscrupulous and dangerous 
duelist. Short, thin, with a yellow complexion, 
with strongly marked but interesting features, an 
aquiline nose, and bright dark eyes, he was the typ- 
ical picture of an unscrupulous male flirt and duel- 
ist. 

The handsome woman appeared to be eprise 
with the Count, and to take an interest in his 
friend; at least that was the construction that the 
others in the dining-room put upon the situation, as 
far as could be construed from the behaviour and 
looks of the people concerned, and especially from 
their looks, for the beautiful woman’s blue eyes 


A FASHIONABLE WOMAN 


253 


rested on the Count with affection and ardour, and 
on the Italian from time to time with wild, dia- 
bolical sympathy, and it was hard to guess whether 
there was more love or hatred in that glance. 
None of the four, however, who were now dining 
and chatting so gayly together, had any presenti- 
ment at the time that they were amusing them- 
selves over a mine, which might explode at any 
moment and bury them all. 

It was the husband of the beautiful woman who 
provided the tinder. One day he told her that 
she must make up her mind to the most rigid re- 
trenchment, give up her box at the opera, and sell 
her carriage and horses, if she did not wish to risk 
her whole position in society. Her creditors had 
lost all patience, and were threatening to distrain 
on her property, and even to put her in prison. 
She made no reply to this revelation, but during 
dinner she said to the Count, in a whisper, that 
she must speak to him later, and would, therefore, 
come to see him at his house. When it was dark 
she came thickly veiled, and after she had re- 
sponded to his demonstrations of affection for some 
time with more patience than amiability, she 
began. Their conversation is extracted from his 
diary. 

“ You are so unconcerned and happy, while 
misery and disgrace are threatening me ! ” 

“ Please explain what you mean ! ” 

“ I have incurred some debts.” 

“Again?” he said reproachfully. “Why do 
you not come to me at once, for you must do it 


254 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


in the end, and then at least you would avoid ex- 
posure ? ” 

“ Please do not take me to task,” she replied ; 
“ you know it only makes me angry. I want some 
money ; can you give me some ? ” 

“ How much do you want ? ” She hesitated, for 
she had not the courage to name the real amount, 
but at last she said, in a low voice : “ Five thou- 

sand florins.” It was evidently only a small por- 
tion of what she really required, so he replied : “ I 
am sure you want more than that ! ” 

“ No.” 

“ Really not?” 

“ Do not make me angry.” 

He shrugged his shoulders, went to his strong- 
box, and gave her the money, whereupon she 
nodded, and, giving him her hand, she said : “ You 
are always kind, and as long as I have you I am 
not afraid; but if I were to lose you I should be 
the most unhappy woman in the world.” 

“ You always have the same fears ; but I shall 
never leave you; it would be impossible for me to 
separate from you,” the Count exclaimed. 

“And if you die?” she interrupted him hastily. 
“If I die?” the Count said, with a peculiar smile. 
“ I have provided for you in that event, also.” 

“ Do you mean to say ” she stammered, 

flushed, and her beautiful large eyes rested on her 
lover with an indescribable expression in them. 
He, however, opened a drawer in his writing table 
and took out a document, which he gave to her. 
It was his will. She opened it with almost in- 


A FASHIONABLE WOMAN 


255 


decent haste, and when she saw the amount — thirty 
thousand florins — she grew pale to her very lips. 

It was a moment in which the germ of a crime 
was sown in her breast, but one of those crimes 
which cannot be touched by the Criminal Code. A 
few days after she had paid her visit to the Count 
she herself received one from the Italian. In the 
course of conversation he took a jewel case out 
of his breast pocket and asked her opinion of the 
ornaments, as she was well known for her taste in 
such matters, telling her at the same time that it 
was intended as a present for an actress whom he 
admired. 

“ It is a magnificent set ! ” she said, as she looked 
at it. “ You have made an excellent selection.” 
Then she suddenly became absorbed in thought, 
while her nostrils began to quiver, and that touch 
of cold cruelty played on her lips. 

“ Do you think that the lady for whom this or- 
nament is intended will be pleased with it?” the 
Italian asked. 

“ Certainly,” she replied ; “ I myself would give 
a great deal to own it.” 

“ Then may I venture to oiler it to you ? ” the 
Italian said. 

She blushed, but did not refuse it. The same 
evening she rushed to the Count’s apartment in a 
state of the greatest excitement. “ I am beside 
myself,” she stammered ; “ I have been most deeply 
insulted.” 

“ By whom ? ” the Count asked excitedly. 

“ By your friend, who has dared to send me 


256 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

some jewellery to-day. I suppose he looks upon me 
as belonging to the demi-monde, and this I owe to 
you, to you alone, and to my mad love for you, to 
which I have sacrificed my honour and everything. 
Everything ! ” She threw herself down and sobbed, 
and would not be pacified until the Count gave her 
his word of honour that he would set aside every 
consideration for his friend, and obtain satisfac- 
tion for her at any price. He met the Italian the 
same evening at a card party and questioned him. 

“ I did not, in the first place, send the lady the 
jewellery, but I gave it to her myself, not, how- 
ever, until she had asked me to do so. ,, 

“ That is a shameful lie ! ” the Count shouted 
furiously. Unfortunately, there were others pres- 
ent. His friend took the matter seriously, and the 
next morning sent his seconds to the Count. 

Some of their real friends tried to settle the 
matter in another way, but his bad angel, the Vien- 
nese, who required thirty thousand florins, drove 
the Count to his death. He was found in the Pra- 
ter with his friend’s bullet in his chest. A letter 
in his pocket spoke of suicide, but the police did not 
doubt for a moment that a duel had taken place. 
Suspicion soon fell on the Italian, but when they 
went to arrest him he had already made his escape. 

The broken-hearted father of the man who had 
been killed in the duel had hastened to Vienna on 
receipt of a telegram, and a few hours after his ar- 
rival the husband of the beautiful enigmatical 
woman called on him and demanded money : “ My 
wife was your son’s most intimate friend,” he 


A FASHIONABLE WOMAN 


257 


stammered, in embarrassment, in order to justify 
his action as well as he could. “ Oh ! I know that,” 
the old Count replied, “ and female friends of that 
kind want to be paid immediately, and in full. 
Here are the thirty thousand florins.” 

And our Goldkind? She paid her debts, and 
then withdrew from the scene for a while. She 
had been compromised, certainly, but then she had 
risen in value in the eyes of a certain class of men 
who can only adore and sacrifice themselves for a 
woman when her foot is on the threshold of vice 
and crime. 

I saw her last during the Franco-German war, 
in the beautiful Mirabell Garden, at Salzburg. She 
did not appear to feel any qualms of conscience, 
for she had become considerably stouter, which 
made her more attractive, more beautiful, and con- 
sequently more dangerous than she was before. 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


T HE Princess Leonie was one of those beau- 
tiful, brilliant enigmas who have the irre- 
sistible attraction of a Sphinx. She was 
young, charming, and singularly lovely, and un- 
derstood how to heighten her charms not a little 
by carefully chosen dresses. She was a great lady 
of the true stamp, and was very intellectual in 
the bargain, which is not always the case with 
women of the aristocracy. She also took great in- 
terest in art and literature, and it was even said 
that she patronized one of our poets in a manner 
worthy of the Medicis, and that she strewed the 
beautiful roses of womanly sympathy on his thorny 
path. All this was evident to every one, and had 
nothing strange about it ; but the world would have 
liked to know the history of that woman, and to 
look into the depths of her soul, and thought it 
very strange that it could not do so. 

No one could read that face, which was always 
beautiful, always cheerful, and always the same; 
no one could read those large, dark, unfathom- 
able eyes, which hid their secrets under the unvary- 
ing brilliancy of majestic repose, like a mountain 
lake whose waters look black on account of their 
depth. But every one was agreed that the beauti- 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


259 


ful princess had her secrets, interesting and 
precious secrets, like all other ladies of our fash- 
ionable world. 

Most people looked upon her as a flirt who had 
no heart, and even no blood, and they asserted 
that she was only virtuous because she was in- 
capable of love, but that she took all the more 
pleasure in attracting admiration, and that she set 
her snares and enticed her victims, until they sur- 
rendered at discretion at her feet, when she would 
hurry off in pursuit of some fresh quarry. 

Others declared that the beautiful woman had 
had her romances in life, and was still having them, 
but, like Messalina, knew how to conceal her ad- 
ventures as cleverly as that French queen who had 
every one of her lovers thrown into the cold wa- 
ters of the Seine as soon as he left her soft, warm 
arms. She was thus described to Count Otto 

F , a handsome cavalry officer who had made 

the acquaintance of the beautiful, capitvating 
woman at that fashionable watering place, Karls- 
bad, and had fallen deeply in love with her. 

Even before he had been introduced to her the 
Princess had already exchanged ardent, encourag- 
ing glances with him, and when a brother officer 
took him to call on her she welcomed him with a 
winning smile. But after he had paid his court to 
her for a month he did not seem to have made any 
progress, and as she possessed in a high degree the 
skill of being able to avoid even the shortest pri- 
vate interviews, it appeared as if matters would go 
no further than that delightful reception. 


26 o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Night after night the enamoured young officer 
would walk along the garden railings of her villa 
as close to her windows as possible without being 
noticed by any one, but at last fortune seemed to 
favour him. The moon, which was nearly full, was 
shining brightly, and in its silvery light he saw a 
tall female figure, with large braids of hair round 
her head, coming along the gravel path. He stood 
still, as he thought he recognized the Princess, but 
as she came nearer he saw a pretty girl whom he 
did not know and who came up to the railings and 
said to him with a smile : “ What can I do for 

you, Count ? ” mentioning his name. 

“ You seem to know me, Fraulein.” 

“ Oh ! I am only the Princess’s lady’s maid.” 

“ But you could do me a great favour.” 

" How ? ” she asked quickly. 

“ You might give the Princess a letter.” 

“ I should not venture to do that,” the girl re- 
plied, with a peculiar, half-mocking, half-pitying 
smile, and, with a deep courtesy, she disappeared 
behind the raspberry bushes which formed a hedge 
along the railings. 

The next morning, as the Count, with several 
other ladies and gentlemen, was accompanying the 
Princess home from the pump-room, the fair co- 
quette let her pocket-handkerchief fall just outside 
her house. The young officer, taking this for a 
hint, picked it up, concealed the letter that he had 
written and which he always kept about him so as 
to be prepared for any opportunity in the folds of 
the soft cambric handkerchief, and gave it back to 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


26l 


the Princess, who quickly put it in her pocket. 
That seemed to him to be a good augury, and, in 
fact, in the course of a few hours he received by 
mail a note in disguised handwriting in which his 
bold wooing was graciously entertained, and an ap- 
pointment was made for the same night in the 
pavilion of the Princess’s villa. 

The happiness of the enamoured young officer 
knew no bounds; he kissed the letter a hundred 
times, and when he met the Princess in the after- 
noon where the band was playing thanked her by 
his animated looks, which she either did not or 
could not understand. That night he was standing, 
an hour before the appointed time, outside the wall 
at the end of the garden. 

When the church clock struck eleven he climbed 
over the wall and jumped to the ground on the 
other side and looked about him carefully; then he 
went up on tiptoe to the small whitewashed sum- 
mer house, where the Princess had promised to 
meet him. He found the door ajar, went in, and 
at the same moment felt two soft arms thrown 
round him. 

“ Is it you, Princess?” he asked, in a whisper, 
for the pavilion was in total darkness, as the Vene- 
tian blinds were drawn. 

“ Yes, Count, it is I.” . . . 

“ How cruel ! ” 

“ I love you, but I am obliged to conceal my 
passion under the mask of coldness because of my 
social position.” 

The lovers spent two blissful hours together, and 


262 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


then she bade him farewell and told him to remain 
where he was until she had gone back to the house. 
He obeyed her, but could not resist looking at her 
through the Venetian blinds, and he saw her tall, 
slim figure as she went along the gravel path with 
an undulating walk. She wore a white burnous, 
which he recognized, having seen it in the pump- 
room ; her soft black hair fell dpwn over her shoul- 
ders, and before she disappeared into the villa she 
stood for a moment and looked back, but he could 
not see her face, as she wore a thick veil. 

When Count F met the Princess the next 

morning in company with other ladies, when the 
band was playing, she showed a lack of constraint 
which confused him, and while she was joking in 
the most unembarrassed manner, he turned crimson 
and stammered out such nonsense that the ladies 
noticed it, and made him the target for their wit. 
None of them was bolder or more confident in their 
attacks on him than the Princess, so that at last he 
looked upon the woman who concealed so much 
passion in her breast and could yet command her- 
self so thoroughly as a kind of miracle, and said 
to himself : “ The world is right ; woman is a 

riddle!” 

The Princess remained there some weeks longer, 
and always maintained the same polite and 
friendly, but cool and sometimes ironical, de- 
meanour towards him. But he easily endured be- 
ing looked upon as her unfortunate adorer by the 
world, for at least every other day a small per- 
fumed note, with her crest and signed “Leonie,” 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


263 


summoned him to the pavilion, and there he en- 
joyed the full, delightful possession of the beautiful 
woman. It, however, struck him as strange that 
she would never let him see her face. Her head 
was always covered with a thick black veil, through 
which he could see her eyes, which sparkled with 
love, glistening; he passed his fingers through her 
hair, he saw her well-known dresses, and once he 
succeeded in getting possession of one of her 
pocket-handkerchiefs, on which the name Leonie 
and the princely coronet were magnificently em- 
broidered. 

When she returned to Vienna for the winter a 
note from her invited him to follow her there, and 
as he had indefinite leave of absence from his regi- 
ment, he could obey the commands of his divinity. 
As soon as he arrived there he received another 
note, which forbade him to go to her house, but 
promised him a speedy meeting in his rooms, and 
so the young officer had the furniture elegantly 
renovated, and looked forward to a visit from the 
beautiful woman with all a lover’s impatience. 

At last she came, wrapped in a magnificent cloak 
of green velvet, trimmed with ermine, but still 
thickly veiled, and before she came in she made it 
a condition that the room in which he received her 
should be quite dark, and after he had put out all 
the lights she threw off her fur, and her coldness 
gave way to the most impetuous tenderness. 

“ What is the reason that you will never allow 
me to see your dear, beautiful face?” the officer 
asked. 


264 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ It is a whim of mine, and I suppose I have 
the right to indulge in whims,” she said hastily. 

“ But I so long once more to see your splendid 
figure and your lovely face in full daylight,” the 
Count continued. 

“ Very well, then, you shall meet me at the 
opera this evening.” 

She left him at six o’clock, after staying barely 
an hour with him, and as soon as her carriage had 
driven off he dressed and went to the opera. 
During the overture he saw the Princess enter her 
box looking dazzlingly beautiful ; she was wearing 
the same green velvet cloak, trimmed with ermine, 
that he had had in his hands a short time before, 
and as it fell from her shoulders it revealed a neck 
which was worthy of the Goddess of Love. She 
spoke to her husband with much animation, and 
smiled with her usual cold smile, though she did 
not give her adorer even a passing look, but in 
spite of this he was the happiest of mortals. 

In Vienna, however, the Count was not as for- 
tunate as he had been at Karlsbad, where he had 
first met her, for his beautiful lady came to see 
him only once a week; often she only stayed a 
short time with him, and once nearly six weeks 
passed without her seeing him at all, and she did 
not even make any excuse for remaining away. 
Just then, however, Leonie’s husband accidentally 
made the young officer’s acquaintance at the Jockey 
Club, took a fancy to him, and asked him to go and 
see him at his house. 

When he called and found the Princess alone 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


265 


his heart felt as if it would burst with pleasure, 
and, seizing her hand, he pressed it ardently to his 
lips. 

“What are you doing, Count ?” she said, draw- 
ing back. “ You are behaving very strangely.” 

“We are alone,” the young officer whispered, 
“so why this mask of innocence? Your cruelty is 
driving me mad, for it is six weeks since you came 
to see me last.” 

“ I certainly think you are out of your mind,” 
the Princess replied, with every sign of the highest 
indignation, and hastily left the drawing-room. 
Nothing else remained for the Count but to do the 
same thing, but his mind was in a perfect whirl, 
and he was quite incapable of explaining to himself 
the Princess’ enigmatical behaviour. He dined at 
an hotel with some friends, and when he got home 
he found a note in which the Princess begged him 
to pardon her, and promised to justify her con- 
duct, for which purpose she would see him at eight 
o’clock that evening. 

Scarcely, however, had he read her note, when 
two of his brother officers came to see him, and 
asked him, with well-simulated anxiety, whether he 
were ill. When he said that he was perfectly well, 
one of them continued, laughing : “ Then please 

explain the occurrence that is in everybody’s 
mouth to-day, in which you play such a comical 
part.” 

“ I, a comical part ? ” the Count shouted. 

“ Well, is it not very comical when you call on 
a lady like Princess Leonie, whom you do not 


266 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


know, to upbraid her for her cruelty, and most un- 
ceremoniously call her thou?” 

That was too much; Count F might pardon 

the Princess for pretending not to know him in so- 
ciety, but that she should make him a common 
laughing-stock nearly drove him mad. “If I call 
the Princess thou,” he exclaimed, “ it is because I 
have the right to do so, as I will prove.” His com- 
rades shrugged their shoulders, but he asked them 
to come again punctually at seven o’clock, and then 
made his preparations. 

At eight o’clock his divinity made her appear- 
ance, still thickly veiled, but on this occasion wear- 
ing a valuable sable cloak. As usual Count F 

took her into the dark room and locked the outer 
door; then he opened that which led into his bed- 
room, and his two friends came in, each with a 
candle in his hand. The lady in the sable cloak 

cried out in terror when Count F pulled off 

her veil, but then it was his turn to be surprised, 
for it was not Princess Leonie who stood before 
him, but her pretty lady’s maid, who, now she was 
discovered confessed that love had driven her to 
assume her mistress’ part, in which she had suc- 
ceeded perfectly, on account of the similarity of 
their figure, eyes, and hair. She had found the 
Count’s letter in the Princess’ pocket-handkerchief 
when they were at Karlsbad, and had answered it. 
She had made him happy, and had heightened the 
illusion which her figure gave rise to by borrowing 
the Princess’s dresses. 

Of course the Count was made great fun of, and 


THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE 


267 


turned his back on Vienna hastily that same even- 
ing, but the pretty lady’s maid also disappeared 
soon after the catastrophe, and only by those means 
escaped from her mistress’s well-merited anger ; for 
it turned out that that gay little individual had al- 
ready played the part of her mistress more than 
once, and had deceived those hopeless adorers of 
the Princess. 

Thus was solved the enigma which Princess 
Leonie seemed to have presented to the world. 


A DEER PARK IN THE PROVINCES 


A HUNGARIAN Prince in an Austrian cav- 
alry regiment was stationed, not long ago, 
in a wealthy Austrian garrison town. The 
ladies of the local aristocracy naturally did every- 
thing they could to ensnare the newcomer, who was 
young, good-looking, animated, and amusing, and 
at last one of the mature beauties, who was now 
resting on her laurels, after innumerable victories 
in the fervid atmosphere of Viennese society, suc- 
ceeded in taking him in her toils, but only for a 
short time, for she had very nearly reached the 
age where, on the man’s side, love ceases and es- 
teem begins. But she had more sense than most 
women, and she recognized the fact in good time; 
but as she did not wish to give up so easily the 
leading role which she played in society, she re- 
flected as to what means she could employ to bind 
him to her in another manner. It is well known 
that the notorious Marquise de Pompadour, who 
was one of the mistresses of Louis XV of France, 
when her own charms did not suffice to fetter that 
changeable monarch, conceived the idea of securing 
the chief power in the State and in society for her- 
self by having a pavilion in the deer park which 
belonged to her, and where Louis XV was in the 


A DEER PARK IN THE PROVINCES 269 

habit of hunting', fitted up with every accommoda- 
tion of a harem, where she brought beautiful 
women and girls of all ranks of life to the arms of 
her royal lover. 

Inspired by that historical example, the Baron- 
ess began to arrange evening parties, balls, and 
private theatricals in the winter, and in the sum- 
mer excursions into the country, and thus she gave 
the Prince, who at that time was still, so to say, 
at her feet, the opportunity of plucking fresh flow- 
ers. But even this clever expedient did not avail 
in the long run, for beautiful women were scarce 
in that provincial town, and the few. which the local 
aristocracy could produce were not able to offer the 
Prince any fresh attractions, when he had made 
their closer acquaintance. At last, therefore, he 
turned his back on the highborn Messalinas, and 
began to bestow marked attention on the pretty 
women and girls of the middle classes, either in 
the streets or when he was in his box at the 
theatre. 

There was one girl in particular, the daughter 
of a well-to-do merchant, who was supposed to be 
the most beautiful girl in the capital, on whom his 
opera-glass was constantly levelled, and whom he 
even followed occasionally without being noticed. 
But Baroness Pompadour soon got wind of this 
unprincely taste, and determined to do everything 
in her power to keep her lover and the whole no- 
bility, which was threatened by such an unheard-of 
disgrace as an intrigue of a Prince with a girl of 
the middle classes. 


270 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ It is really sad,” the outraged Baroness once 
said to me, “ that in these days princes and mon- 
archs choose their favourites only from the stage, 
or even from the scum of the people. But it is 
the fault of our ladies themselves. They mistake 
their vocation ! Ah ! Where are those delightful 
times when the daughters of the first families 
looked upon it as an honour to become their Princes’ 
mistresses ? ” Consequently, the horror of the 
blue-blooded aristocratic lady was intense when the 
Prince, in his usual amiable, careless manner, sug- 
gested to her to people her deer park with girls of 
the lower orders. 

“ It is a ridiculous prejudice,” the Prince said 
on that occasion, “ which obliges us to shut our- 
selves off from the other ranks, and to confine our- 
selves altogether to our own circle, for monotony 
and boredom are the inevitable consequences of it. 
How many honourable men of sense and educa- 
tion, and especially how many charming women 
and girls, there are, who do not belong to the 
aristocracy, who would infuse fresh life and a new 
charm into our dull, listless society! I very much 
wish that a lady like you would make a beginning, 
and would give up this exclusiveness, which cannot 
be maintained in these days, and would enrich our 
circle with the charming daughters of middle-class 
families.” 

A wish of the Prince’s was as good as a com- 
mand ; so the Baroness made a wry face, but she 
accommodated herself to circumstances, and prom- 
ised to invite some of the prettiest girls of the 


A DEER PARK IN THE PROVINCES 27: 

plebeians to a ball in a few days. She really is- 
sued a number of invitations, and even conde- 
scended to drive to the house of each of them in 
person. “ But I must ask one thing- of you,” she 
said to each of the pretty girls, “ and that is to 
come as simply as possible; wash muslins will be 
best. The Prince dislikes all finery and ostenta- 
tion, and he would be very vexed with me if I were 
the cause of any extravagance on your part.” 

The great day arrived ; it was quite an event 
for the little town, and all classes of society were 
in a state of the greatest excitement. The pretty 
plebeian girls, with her whom the Prince had first 
noticed at their head, appeared in all their inno- 
cence, in plain wash dresses, according to the 
Prince’s orders, with their hair plainly dressed and 
without any ornaments except their own fresh, 
buxom charms. When they were all captives in 
the den of the proud, aristocratic lioness, the poor 
little mice were very much terrified when suddenly 
the aristocratic ladies came into the ballroom, rus- 
tling in a sea of silk and lace, with their haughty 
heads changed into so many hanging gardens of 
Semiramis, loaded with all the treasures of India 
and radiant as the sun. 

At first the poor girls looked down in shame 
and confusion, and Baroness Pompadour’s eyes 
glistened with all the joy of triumph, but her ill- 
natured pleasure did not last long, for the intrigue 
on which the Prince’s ignoble passions were to be 
shipwrecked recoiled on the highborn lady patron- 
ess of the deer park. 


272 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


It was not the aristocratic ladies in their mag- 
nificent toilets that threw the girls of the middle 
class into the shade, but, on the contrary, those 
pretty girls in their wash dresses, who with the 
plain but splendid ornament of their abundant hair 
looked far more charming than they would have 
done in silk dresses with long trains, and with flow- 
ers in their hair, and the novelty and unwonted- 
ness of their appearance there, allured not only the 
Prince, but all the other gentlemen and officers, so 
that the proud granddaughters of the lions, grif- 
fins, and eagles were quite neglected by the gentle- 
men, who danced almost exclusively with the 
pretty girls of the middle class. 

The faded lips of the baronesses and countesses 
uttered many a “ For shame ! ” but all in vain ; 
neither was it any use for the Baroness to make up 
her mind that she would never again put a social 
medley before the Prince in her drawing-room, for 
he had seen through her intrigue, and gave her up 
altogether. Sic transit gloria mundi! 

She, however, consoled herself as best she could. 


THE WHITE LADY 


T HE goddess of chance and good luck, For- 
tuna, has always been Cupid’s best ally, and 
Arnold T , lieutenant in a hussar regi- 

ment, was in special favour with both these deities. 

This good-looking, well-bred young officer had 
been an enthusiastic admirer of the two Count- 
esses W , mother and daughter, during a tol- 

erably long leave of absence, which he spent with 
his relatives in Vienna. He had admired them 
from the Prater and worshiped them at the opera, 
but he had never had an opportunity of making 
their acquaintance, and when he was back at his 
dull quarters in Galicia, he liked to think about 
those two aristocratic beauties. Last summer his 
regiment was transferred to Bohemia, to a wildly 
romantic district that had been made illustrious by 
a talented writer, and abounded in magnificent 
woods, lofty mountain forests and castles, and was 
a favourite summer resort of the aristocracy of the 
vicinity. 

Who can describe the lieutenant’s joyful surprise 
when he and his men were quartered in an old, 
weather-beaten castle in the midst of a wood, and 
he learned from the house steward who received 
him that the owner of the castle was the husband, 


274 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and, consequently, also the father, of his Viennese 
ideals? An hour after he had taken possession of 
his old-fashioned, but beautifully furnished, room 
in a side wing of the castle, he put on his full-dress 
uniform, and, throwing his military cape over his 
shoulders, he went to pay his respects to the Count 
and the ladies. 

He was received with the greatest cordiality. 
The Count was delighted to have a companion 
when he went out shooting, and the ladies were no 
less pleased at having some one to accompany them 
on their walks in the forests or on their rides, so 
that he felt only half on the earth and half in the 
seventh heaven of Mohammedan bliss. Before sup- 
per he found time to inspect the house more closely, 
and even to take a sketch of the large, gloomy 
building from a favourable point of view. The an- 
cient seat of the Counts of W was really very 

gloomy; in fact, it created a sinister, uncomforta- 
ble feeling. The walls, which were crumbling here 
and there, were covered with dark ivy; the round 
towers, which harboured jackdaws, owls, and 
hawks ; the yEolian harp, which complained and 
sighed and wept in the wind; the stones in the 
castle yard, which were overgrown with grass ; the 
cloisters, in which every footstep reechoed ; the 
great ancestral portraits which hung on the walls, 
coated as it were with dark, mysterious veils by 
the centuries which had passed over them — all this 
recalled to him the legends and fairy tales of his 
youth, and he involuntarily thought of the Sleeping 
Beauty in the Wood and of Blue-Beard, of the 


THE WHITE LADY 


275 


cruel mistress of the Kynast, and that artistocratic 
tigress of the Carpathians who obtained the unfad- 
ing charms of eternal youth by bathing in human 
blood. 

He came in to supper, where he found himself 
for the first time in company with all the members 
of the family, just in the frame of mind suitable 
for seeing ghosts, and was not a little surprised 
when his host told him, half smiling and half seri- 
ously, that the “ White Lady ” was disturbing the 
castle again, and that she had latterly been seen 
very often. 

“ Yes, indeed,” Countess Ida exclaimed. “ You 
must take care, Baron, for she haunts the very 
wing where your room is.” 

The hussar was just in the mood to take the 
matter seriously, but when he saw the dark, ardent 
eyes of the Countess and the merry blue eyes of 
her daughter fixed on him, any real fear of ghosts 

was quite out of the question. For Baron T 

feared nothing in this world, but he possessed a 
very lively imagination, which could conjure up 
threatening forms from another world so plainly 
that sometimes he felt very uncomfortable at his 
own fancies. But on the present occasion that ma- 
licious apparition of the White Lady had no power 
over him ; the ladies took care of that, for both of 
them were beautiful and amiable. 

The Countess was a mature beauty of thirty-six, 
of middle height, and with the voluptuous figure 
of a true Viennese, with bright eyes, thick dark 
hair, and beautiful white teeth ; while her daughter, 


276 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Ida, who was seventeen, had light hair and the 
pert little nose of the china figures of shepherdesses 
in the dress of the period of Louis XIV, and was 
short, slim, and full of French grace. Besides 
them and the Count, a son of twelve and his tutor 
were present at supper. It struck the hussar as 
strange that the tutor, who was a strongly built 
young man with a winning face and those refined 
manners which the most plebeian quickly acquire 
when brought into close and constant contact with 
the aristocracy, was treated with great considera- 
tion by all the family except the Countess, who 
treated him very haughtily. She assumed a par- 
ticularly imperious manner toward her son’s tutor, 
and she either found fault with or made fun of 
everything that he did, while he put up with it all 
with smiling humility. 

Before supper was over their conversation again 

turned on the ghost, and Baron T asked 

whether they did not possess a picture of the White 
Lady. 

“ Of course we have one,” they all replied at 
once; whereupon Baron T begged to be al- 

lowed to see it. 

“ I will show it you to-morrow,” the Count said. 

“ No, papa, now, immediately,” the younger lady 
said mockingly; “just before the ghostly hour such 
a thing creates a much greater impression.” 

All who were present, not excepting the boy and 
his tutor, took a candle, and then they walked as 
if they had formed a torchlight procession to the 
wing of the house where the hussar’s room was. 


THE WHITE LADY 


2 77 

There was a life-size picture of the White Lady 
hanging in a Gothic passage near his room, among 
other ancestral portraits, and it by no means made 
a terrible impression on any one who looked at it, 
but rather the contrary. The ghost, dressed in 
stiff gold brocade and purple velvet, and with a 
hawk on her wrist, looked like one of those se- 
ductive Amazons of the fifteenth century who ex- 
ercised the art of bringing men and game to their 
feet with equal skill. 

“ Don’t you think that the White Lady is very 
like mamma ? ” Countess Ida said, interrupting 
the Baron’s silent contemplation of the picture. 

“ There is no doubt of it,” the hussar replied, 
while the Countess smiled and the tutor turned red, 
and they were still standing before the picture, 
when a strong gust of wind suddenly extinguished 
all the lights, and they all uttered a simultaneous 
cry. 

“ The White Lady ! ” the little Count whispered, 
but she did not come, and as it was luckily a moon- 
light night, they soon recovered from their mo- 
mentary shock. The family retired to their apart- 
ments, while the hussar and the tutor went to their 
own rooms, which were situated in the wing of the 
castle which was haunted by the White Lady; the 
officer’s room being scarcely thirty yards from the 
portrait, while those of the tutor were rather far- 
ther down the corridor. 

The hussar went to bed and was soon fast 
asleep, and, though he had rather uneasy dreams, 
nothing further happened. But while they were 


278 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


at breakfast the next morning the Count’s valet 
told them, with every appearance of real terror, 
that as he was crossing the courtyard at midnight 
he had suddenly heard a noise like bats in the 
open cloisters, and when he looked he distinctly 
saw the White Lady gliding slowly through them; 
but they merely laughed at the coward, and, though 
our hussar laughed also, he fully made up his mind, 
without saying a word about it, to keep a lookout 
for the ghost that night. 

Again they had supper alone without any com- 
pany, and then some music and pleasant conver- 
sation, and separated at half-past eleven. The hus- 
sar, however, only went to his room for form’s 
sake; he loaded his pistols, and when all was quiet 
in the castle he crept down into the courtyard and 
took up his position behind a pillar which was quite 
hidden in the shade, while the moon, which was 
nearly at the full, flooded the cloisters with its 
clear, pale light. 

There were no lights to be seen in the castle 
except from two windows, those of the Countess’s 
apartments, and soon they also were extinguished. 
The clock struck twelve, and the hussar could 
scarcely breathe from excitement; the next mo- 
ment, however, he heard the noise which the 
Count’s body-servant had compared to that of bats, 
and almost at the same instant a white figure glided 
slowly through the open cloisters and passed so 
close to him that it almost made his blood curdle, 
and then it disappeared in the wing of the castle 
which he and the tutor occupied. 


THE WHITE LADY 


2 79 


The officer who was usually so brave stood as 
though he were paralyzed for a few moments, but 
then, taking courage and determined to make the 
nearer acquaintance of the spectral lady, he crept 
softly up the broad staircase and took up his posi- 
tion in a deep recess of the cloisters, where nobody 
could see him. 

He waited for a long time ; he heard every quar- 
ter strike, and at last, just before the close of the 
witching hour, he heard the same noise like the 
rustling of bats, and then she came, he felt the 
flutter of her white dress, and she stood before him 
— it was the Countess ! 

He presented his pistol as he challenged her, 
but she raised her hand deprecatingly. 

“Who are you?’’ he exclaimed. “If you are 
really a ghost prove it, for l am going to fire.” 

“ For Heaven’s sake ! ” the White Lady whis- 
pered, and at the same instant two white arms were 
thrown round him, and he felt a full, warm bosom 
heaving against his chest. 

After that night the ghost appeared more fre- 
quently. Not only did the White Lady make her 
appearance every night in the cloisters, only to dis- 
appear in the proximity of the hussar’s rooms as 
long as the family remained at the castle, but she 
even followed them to Vienna. 

Baron T , who went to that capital on leave 

of absence during the following winter and who 
was the Count’s guest at the express wish of his 
wife, was frequently told by the footman that, 
although hitherto she had seemed to be confined to 


28 o 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the old castle in Bohemia, she had shown herself 
now here, now there, in the mansion in Vienna, in 
a white dress and making a noise like the wings 
of a bat, and bearing a striking resemblance to 
the beautiful Countess. 


CAUGHT 




L AST summer a young and charming woman, 
a member of the Viennese aristocracy, went 
without her husband to Karlsbad, a fashion- 
able Austrian resort much frequented by foreign- 
ers. 

As is customary in their rank of life, she had 
married from family considerations and for money ; 
and the short interval of love after marriage was 
not sufficient to take deep root. After she had 
satisfied family traditions and her husband’s wishes 
by giving birth to a son and heir, they both went 
their way; the young, handsome, and fascinating 
man to his clubs, to the race-course, and behind 
the scenes at the theatres, and his charming, co- 
quettish wife to her box at the opera, to the skat- 
ing pond in winter, and to some fashionable wat- 
ering place in the summer. 

On the present occasion she brought with her 
from one of the latter resorts a young Pole of very 
good family, who enjoyed all the rights and the 
liberty of an avowed favourite, and who had to per- 
form all the duties of a slave. 

As is usual in such cases, the lady rented a 
small house in one of the suburbs of Vienna, had 
it beautifully furnished, and received her admirer 


282 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


there. She was always dressed very attractively, 
sometimes as La Belle Helene in Offenbach’s op- 
era, only rather more after the ancient Greek fash- 
ion; another time as an odalisque in the Sultan’s 
harem, and another time as a light-hearted Suabian 
girl, and so forth. In winter, however, she 
grew tired of such meetings and wanted to be 
more comfortably settled, so she took it into her 
head to receive the Pole in her own house. But 
how was it to be done? That, however, gave her 
no particular difficulty, as is the case with every 
woman when once she has made up her mind to 
a thing; and after thinking it over for a day or 
two she went to the next rendezvous with a fully 
prepared plan of war. 

The Pole was a rare type of a handsome man. 
His delicate features were almost womanly, he 
was of middle height, slim, and well-made, and 
resembled a youthful Bacchus who might very 
easily be made to pass for a Venus by the help 
of false locks, the more so as there was not even 
the slightest down on his lips. The lady, there- 
fore, who was very fertile in resources, suggested 
to the handsome Pole that he might just as well 
transform himself into a handsome Polish lady, 
so that he might, under the cover of the ever femi- 
nine, be able to visit her undisturbed, and as it 
was winter, the thick, heavy, ample costume as- 
sisted the metamorphosis. 

The lady accordingly bought a number of very 
beautiful costumes for her lover, and in the course 
of a few days she told her husband that a charm- 


CAUGHT 


283 


ing young Polish lady, whose acquaintance she had 
made in the summer at Karlsbad, was going to 
spend the winter in Vienna, and would very fre- 
quently come and see her. Her husband listened 
to her with the greatest indifference, for it was one 
of his fundamental rules never to make love to 
any of his wife’s female friends; he went to his 
club as usual at night, and the next day had for- 
gotten all about the Polish lady. 

Half an hour after the husband had left the 
house a cab drove up and a tall, slim, heavily 
veiled lady got out and went up the thickly car- 
peted stairs, only to be metamorphosed into the 
most ardent lover in the young woman’s boudoir. 
The young Pole grew accustomed to his female 
attire so readily that he even ventured to appear 
in the streets in it, and when he began to make 
conquests, and aristocratic gentlemen and success- 
ful speculators on the Stock Exchange looked at 
him significantly, and even followed him, he took 
a real pleasure in the part he was playing, and 
began to understand the pleasure a coquette feels 
in tormenting men. 

The young Pole became more and more daring, 
until at last one evening he went to a private 
box at the opera, wrapped in an ermine cloak, 
on which his dark, false curls fell down in heavy 
waves. 

A handsome young man in a box opposite to him 
ogled him incessantly from the first moment, and 
the young Pole responded in a manner which made 
the other bolder every minute. At the end of 


284 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


the third act the usher brought the fictitious Ve- 
nus a small bouquet with a card concealed in it, 
on which was written in pencil : “ You are the 

most lovely woman in the world, and I implore 
you on my knees to grant me an interview.” The 
young Pole read the name of the man who had 
been captivated so quickly, and, with a peculiar 
smile, wrote on a card on which nothing but the 
name “ Valeska ” was printed : “ After the the- 

atre,” and sent Cupid’s messenger back with it. 

When the spurious Venus, thickly veiled and 
wrapped in her ermine cloak, was about to enter 
her carriage after the performance, the handsome 
young man was standing beside it with his hat off, 
and he opened the door for her. She was kind 
enough to allow him to get in with her, and dur- 
ing their drive she talked to him in the most 
charming manner, but was cruel enough to dismiss 
him without pity before they reached her house, 
and this she did every time. For she went to 
the theatre each night now, and every evening she 
received an ardent note, and every eyening she 
allowed the amorous swain to accompany her as 
far as her house, and men were beginning to envy 
him on account of his brilliant conquest, when a 
catastrophe happened which was very surprising 
for all concerned. 

The husband of the lady in whose eyes the Pole 
had found favour surprised the loving couple one 
day under circumstances which made any justifica- 
tion impossible. But as he, trembling with rage 
and jealousy, was drawing from its sheath a small 


CAUGHT 


285 


Circassian dagger which hung against the wall, 
and as his wife sank, half fainting, on a couch, 
the young Pole had hastily put the false curls on 
his head and had slipped into the silk dress and 
the sable cloak which he had been wearing when 
he came into his mistress’s boudoir. 

“ What does this mean ? ” the husband stam- 
mered. “Valeska?” 

“ Yes, sir,” the young Pole replied ; “ Valerka, 
who has come here to show your wife a few love- 
letters, which ” 

“ No, no,” the deceived, but nevertheless guilty, 
husband said in imploring accents ; “ no, that is 
quite unnecessary.” And at the same time he put 
the dagger back into its sheath. 

“ Very well, then, there is a truce between us,” 
the Pole observed coolly, “but do not forget what 
weapons I possess, which I mean to retain against 
contingencies.” 

Then the gentlemen bowed politely to each 
other, and the unexpected meeting came to an 
end. 

From that time forward the terms on which the 
young married couple lived together assumed the 
character of that everlasting peace which Presi- 
dent Grant once promised to the whole world in 
his message to all nations. The young woman did 
not find it necessary to make her lover put on 
petticoats, and the husband constantly accompa- 
nies the real Valeska a good deal farther than he 
did the false one on that memorable occasion. 


COUNTESS SATAN 


T HEY were discussing dynamite, the social 
revolution, nihilism ; and even those who 
cared least about politics had something to 
say. Some were alarmed, other philosophized, 
while others again tried to smile. 

“ Bah ! ” said N , “ when we are all blown 

up we shall see what it is like. Perhaps, after all, 
it may be an amusing sensation, provided one as- 
cends enough.” 

“ But we shall not be blown up at all,” said 

G , the optimist, interrupting him. “ It is a41 

a romance.” 

“ You are mistaken, my dear fellow,” replied 

Jules de C . “ It sounds like a romance, but 

with that confounded nihilism everything seems 
like one, though it would be a mistake to trust to 
it. Take myself, for instance, the manner in which 
I made Bakounine’s acquaintance ...” 

They knew that he was a good narrator, and 
it was no secret that his life had been an adven- 
turous one, so they drew closer to him, and lis- 
tened with interest. This is what he told them: 

“ I met Countess Nioska W , that strange 

woman who was usually called Countess Satan, 
in Naples; I immediately attached myself to her 


COUNTESS SATIN 


287 


out of curiosity, and soon fell in love with her. 
Not that she was beautiful, for she was a Russian 
who had all the bad characteristics of the Rus- 
sian type. She was thin and squat at the same 
time, while her face was sallow and puffy, with 
high cheek-bones and a Cossack nose. But her 
conversation bewitched every one. 

“ She was many-sided, learned, a philosopher, 
scientifically depraved, satanic. Perhaps the word 
is rather pretentious, but it exactly expresses what 
I want to say; for, in other words, she loved evil 
for the sake of evil. She rejoiced in other people’s 
vices, and liked to sow the seeds of evil, in order 
to see it flourish. And that on a fraudulent, on 
an enormous scale. It was not enough for her 
to corrupt individuals; she only did that to keep 
her hand in; what she wished to do was to cor- 
rupt the masses. By slightly altering it after her 
own fashion, she might have adopted the famous 
saying of Caligula. She also wished that the whole 
human race had but one head; but not in order 
that she might cut it off, but that she might make 
the philosophy of nihilism flourish there. 

“ What a temptation to become the lord and 
master of such a monster! And I allowed my- 
self to be tempted and undertook the adventure. 
The means came unsought-for by me, and the 
only thing that I had to do was to show myself 
more perverted and satanical than she was her- 
self. And so I played the devil. 

“ * Yes,’ I said, ‘ we writers are the best instru- 
ments for doing evil, as our books may be bottles 


288 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


of poison. The so-called men of action only turn 
the handle of the mitrailleuse which we have 
loaded. Formulas will destroy the world, and it 
is we who invent them.’ 

“ 4 That is true/ she said, ‘ and that is what is 
lacking in Bakounine, I am sorry to say/ 

“ That name was constantly in her mouth, and 
so I asked her for details, which she gave me, as 
she knew the man intimately. 

“ ‘ After all/ she said, with a contemptuous 
grimace, ‘ he is only a kind of Garibaldi/ 

“ She told me, although she made fun of him 
as she did so, about his Odyssey of the barricades 
and of the hulks which made up Bakounine’s le- 
gion, and which is, nevertheless, only the exact 
truth ; his part as leader of the insurgents at 
Prague and then at Dresden ; his first death sen- 
tence ; about his imprisonment at Olmiitz and in 
the casemates of the fortress of St. Peter and St. 
Paul; in a subterranean dungeon at Schlisselburg; 
about his exile to Siberia and his wonderful es- 
cape down the River Amoor on a Japanese coast- 
ing vessel, by way of Yokohama and San Fran- 
cisco, and about his final arrival in London, whence 
he was directing all the operations of nihilism. 

“ * You see/ she said, * he is a thorough adven- 
turer, and now all his adventures are over. He 
got married at Tobolsk and became a mere re- 
spectable, middle-class man. And then he has no 
individual ideas. Herzen, the pamphleteer of Ko- 
lokol, inspired him with the only fertile phrase 
that he ever uttered: Land and Liberty! But that 


COUNTESS SATIN 


289 


is not yet the definite formula, the general for- 
mula; what I will call the dynamite formula. At 
best, Bakounine would become an incendiary and 
burn down cities. And what is that, I ask you ? 
Bah! A second-hand Rostopchin! He needs a 
prompter, and I offered to become his prompter, 
but he did not take me seriously.’ 

******* 

“ It would be useless to enter into all the psy- 
chological details which marked the course of my 
passion for the Countess, and to explain to you 
more fully the attraction of curiosity which she of- 
fered me more and more every day. It was be- 
coming exasperating, and the more so as she re- 
sisted me as stoutly as the shyest of innocents 
could have done, but at the end of a month I saw 
what her game was. Do you know what she had 
thought of? She meant to make me Bakounine’s 
prompter, or, at any rate, that is what she said. 
But no doubt she reserved the right to herself — 
and that is how I understood her — to prompt the 
prompter, and my passion for her, which she pur- 
posely left unsatisfied, assured her that absolute 
power over me. 

“ All this may appear madness to you, but it 
is, nevertheless, the exact truth, and, in short, one 
morning she bluntly made the offer : ‘ Become 

Bakounine’s soul, and you shall have me.’ 

“ Of course I accepted, for it was too fantas- 
tically strange to refuse; don’t you think so? 
What an adventure! What luck! A number of 


290 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


letters between the Countess and Bakounine pre- 
pared the way; I was introduced to him at his 
house, and they discussed me there. I became a 
sort of Western prophet, a mystic charmer who 
was ready to annihilate the Latin races, the Saint 
Paul of the new religion of nothingness, and at 
last a day was fixed for us to meet in London. 
He lived in a small one-storied house in Pimlico, 
with a tiny garden in front, and nothing remark- 
able about it. 

“We were first of all shown into the ordinary 
parlour of all English homes, and then upstairs. 
The room into which the Countess and I were 
ushered was small and very badly furnished, with 
a square table with writing materials on it in the 
centre of the room. That was his sanctuary; the 
deity soon appeared, and I saw him in flesh and 
bone; especially in flesh, for he was enormously 
stout. His broad face, with prominent cheek- 
bones, in spite of the fat; his nose like a double 
funnel, and his small, sharp eyes, which had a 
magnetic look, proclaimed the Tartar, the old Tu- 
ranian blood which produced the Attilas, the Gen- 
gis-Khans, the Tamerlanes. The obesity which is 
characteristic of the nomad races, who are always 
on horseback or driving, added to his Asiatic look. 
The man was certainly not a European, a Slav, 
a descendant of the deistic Aryans, but a descend- 
ant of the atheistic hordes who had several times 
already almost overrun Europe, and who, instead 
of any ideas of progress, have the belief in ni- 
hilism at the bottom of their hearts. 


COUNTESS SATIN 


291 


“ I was astonished, for I had not expected that 
the majesty of a whole race could be thus revived 
in a man, and my stupefaction increased after an 
hour’s conversation. I could quite understand why 
such a Colossus had not wished for the Countess 
as his Egeria; she was a mere silly child to have 
dreamed of acting such a part to such a thinker. 
She had not felt the profoundness of the horrible 
philosophy which was hidden under that material 
activity, nor had she seen the prophet under that 
man of the barricades. Or, perhaps, he had not 
thought it advisable to reveal himself to her; but 
he revealed himself to me, and inspired me with 
terror. 

“ A prophet ? Oh ! yes. He thought himself 
an Attila, and foresaw the consequences of his 
revolution ; it was not only from instinct but also 
from theofy that he urged a nation on to nihilism. 
The phrase is not his, but Tourgueneff’s, I believe, 
but the idea certainly belongs to him. He got his 
program of agricultural communism from Herzen, 
and his destructive radicalism from Pougatcheff, 
but he did not stop there. I mean that he went 
on to evil for the sake of evil. Herzen wished 
for the happiness of the Slav peasant; Pougatcheff 
wanted to be elected Emperor, but all that Ba- 
kounine wanted was to overthrow the actual or- 
der of things, no matter by what means, and to 
replace the social order by a universal upheaval. 

“It was the dream of a Tartar; it was true 
nihilism pushed to its extreme practical conclusion. 
It was, in a word, the applied philosophy of 


292 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

chance, the indeterminate aim of anarchy. Mon- 
strous it may be, but grand in its monstrosity. 

“ And you must note that the man of action so 
despised by the Countess became in Bakounine the 
gigantic dreamer whom I have just shown to you, 
and his dream did not remain a dream, but began 
to be realized. It was through Bakounine’s efforts 
that the nihilistic party became an organization, 
an organization comprising all forms of opinion, 
but on the whole a formidable organization, whose 
advance guard is true nihilism, the object of which 
is nothing less than to destroy the Western world, 
to see it blossom from under the ruins of a gen- 
eral dispersion, which is the last conception of 
modern Tartarism. 

“ I never saw Bakounine again, for the Count- 
ess’s conquest would have been too dearly bought 
by any attempt to act a comedy with this Old 
Man of the Mountains. And, besides that, after 
this visit, poor Countess Satan appeared to me 
quite silly. Her famous Satanism was nothing 
but the flicker of a spirit-lamp, and she had cer- 
tainly not shown much intelligence when she 
could not understand that prodigious monster. And 
as she had attracted me only by her intellect and 
her perversity, I was disgusted as soon as she 
laid aside that mask. I left her without telling 
her of my intention, and never saw her again. 

“ No doubt they both took me for a spy from 
the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery. 
In that case, they must have thought me very 
strong to have resisted, and all I have to do is 


COUNTESS SATIN 


293 


to look out, if any affiliated members of their so- 
ciety should happen to recognize me ! . . 

Then he smiled and, turning to the waiter who 
had just come in, he said: “ Meanwhile, open 
us another bottle of champagne, and make the 
cork pop! It will, at any rate, somewhat accus- 
tom us to the day when we ourselves shall all be 
blown up with dynamite/’ 


THE MOUNTEBANKS 


T HE clever manager of the Eden Reunis the- 
atre, as the critics called him, was counting 
on a great success, and had invested his 
last franc in the affair, without thinking of the 
morrow or of the bad luck which had been pur- 
suing him so inexorably for months past. For 
a whole week the walls, the kiosks, shop windows, 
and even the trees, had been placarded with flam- 
ing posters, and from one end of Paris to the 
other carriages were to be seen covered with fancy 
sketches by Cheret, representing two strong, well 
built men who looked like ancient athletes. The 
younger of them, who was standing with his arms 
folded, had the vacant smile of an itinerant 
mountebank on his face, and the other, who was 
dressed in what was supposed to be the costume 
of a Mexican trapper, held a revolver in his 
hand. There were large-type advertisements in 
all the papers, that the Montefiores would appear 
without fail at the Eden Reunis the next Mon- 
day. 

Nothing else was talked about, for the puff and 
humbug attracted people. The Montefiores, like 
fashionable toys, succeeded that whimsical jade 
Rose Peche, who had gone off the preceding au- 


THE MOUNTEBANKS 


295 


tumn, between the third and fourth acts of the 
burlesque Onsca Iscar, in order to make a study 
of love in the company of a young fellow of sev- 
enteen, who had just entered the university. The 
novelty and danger of their performance revived 
and agitated the curiosity of the public, for there 
seemed to be an implied threat of death, or, at 
any rate, of wounds and of blood in it, and 
it seemed as if they defied danger with absolute 
indifference. And that always pleases women; it 
holds them and masters them, and they grow pale 
with emotion and cruel enjoyment. Consequently, 
all the seats in the large theatre were let almost 
immediately, and were soon taken for several days 
in advance. And stout Compardin, losing his glass 
of absinth over a game of dominos, was in high 
spirits, and saw the future through rosy glasses, 
and exclaimed in a loud voice : “ I think I have 

turned up trumps, by George ! ” 

j|£ Jfc sfc 5j« ★ H* ♦ 

The Comtesse Regina de Villegby was lying on 
the sofa in her boudoir, languidly fanning herself. 
She had only received three or four intimate 
friends that day, Saint-Mars Montalvin, Tom 
Sheffield, and his cousin Madame de Rhouel, a 
Creole, who laughed as incessantly as a bird sings. 
It was growing dusk, and the distant rumbling of 
the carriages in the Champs-Elysees sounded like 
some somnolent rhythm. There was a delicate 
perfume of flowers ; the lamps had not been 


296 guy DE MAUPASSANT 

brought in yet, and chatting and laughing they 
filled the room with a confused noise. 

“Would you pour out the tea?” the Countess 
said suddenly, touching Saint-Mars’s fingers with 
her fan. He was beginning a conversation in a 
low voice, and while he slowly filled the little china 
cup, he continued : “ Are the Montefiores as good 
as the lying newspapers make out ? ” 

Then Tom Sheffield and the others all joined in. 

They had never seen anything like it, they de- 
clared; it was most exciting, and made one shiver 
unpleasantly, as when the espada comes to close 
quarters with the infuriated brute at a bullfight. 

Countess Regina listened in silence and nibbled 
the petals of a tea-rose. 

“ How I should like to see them ! ” giddy Ma- 
dame de Rhouel exclaimed. 

“Unfortunately, cousin,” the Countess said, in 
the solemn tones of a preacher, “ a respectable 
woman dare not let herself be seen in improper 
places.” 

They all agreed with her ; nevertheless, Ma- 
dame de Villegby was present at the Montefiores’ 
performance two days later at the back of a stage 
box, dressed all in black, and wearing a thick 
veil. 

And that woman, who was as cold as a steel 
buckler and who had married as soon as she left 
the convent in which she had been at school, with- 
out any afifection or even liking for her husband, 
and whom the most skeptical respected as a saint, 
had a look of virgin purity on her calm face as she 


THE MOUNTEBANKS 297 

went down the steps of the Madeleine on Sundays, 
after high mass. 

Countess Regina stretched herself nervously, 
grew pale, and vibrated like the strings of a violin 
on which an artist has been playing some wild 
symphony, and inhaled the nasty smell of the saw- 
dust, as if it had been the perfume of a bouquet 
of unknown flowers, and clinched her hands, and 
gazed eagerly at the two mountebanks, whom the 
public applauded rapturously at every feat. And, 
contemptuously and haughtily, she compared those 
two men, who were as vigorous as wild animals 
that have grown up in the open air, with the rick- 
ety limbs that looked so awkward in the dress of 
the English huntsman who had tried to awaken 
her heart! 

* * * * * * * 

Comte de Villegby had gone back to the country 
to prepare for his election as Councillor General, 
and the very evening that he started Regina again 
took the stage box at the Eden Reunis. Intoxi- 
cated as if by some love philter, she scribbled a 
few words on a piece of paper — the eternal for- 
mula that women write on such occasions: 

“ A carriage will be waiting for you at the stage 
door after the performance — An unknown woman 
who adores you/’ 

And she gave it to an usher, who handed it to 
the Montefiore who was the champion pistol shot. 

Oh! that interminable waiting in a malodorous 
cab, the overwhelming emotion, and the nausea 


298 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


of disgust, the fear, the desire of waking the coach- 
man who was nodding on the box, of giving him 
her address, and telling him to drive her home. 
But she remained with her face against the win- 
dow, mechanically looking at the dark passage, 
that was illuminated by a gas lamp, at the “ ac- 
tors’ entrance,” through which men were contin- 
ually hurrying, talking in a loud voice, and chew- 
ing the end of a cigar which had gone out. She 
remained as if she were glued to the cushions, 
and tapped impatiently on the bottom of the cab 
with her heels. 

When the actor, who thought it was a joke, made 
his appearance, she could hardly utter a word, for 
impure thoughts are as intoxicating as adulterated 
liquor. She raised hei veil to show how young, 
beautiful, and desirable she was. He admired her 
and promised to meet her. But she soon wearied 
of him and began to flirt with his partner. 

Through it all she maintained her serene ex- 
pression as of an unsullied saint which she wore 
on Sundays after mass. 

The partner was very sentimental, and his head 
was full of romance. He thought the unknown 
woman, who merely used him as her plaything, 
really loved him, and he was not satisfied with 
clandestine meetings. He questioned her, besought 
her, and the Countess made fun of him. Then 
she flirted with each in turn. They did not know 
it, for she had forbidden them ever to talk about 
her to each other, under the penalty of never see- 
ing her again, and one day the younger of them 


THE MOUNTEBANKS 299 

said with humble tenderness, as he knelt at her 
feet : 

“ How kind you are to love me and to want me ! 
I thought that such happiness only existed in 
novels, and that ladies of rank only made fun of 
poor strolling mountebanks like us ! ” 

Regina knitted her golden brows. 

“ Do not be angry,” he continued, “ because I 
followed you and found out where you lived, and 
your real name, and that you are a Countess, and 
rich, very rich.” 

“ You fool ! ” she exclaimed, trembling with an- 
ger. “ People can make you believe things as eas- 
ily as they can a child ! ” 

She had had enough of him ; he knew her name 
and might compromise her. The Count might pos- 
sibly come back from the country before the elec- 
tions. She no longer had any feeling, any desire 
for those two admirers, whom a fillip from her 
rosy fingers could bend to her will. It was time 
to seek for fresh amusement elsewhere. 

“ Listen to me,” she said to the champion shot, 
the next night, “ I would rather not hide anything 
from you. I like your comrade very much better 
than I do you, and I do not want to have anything 
more to do with you.” 

“ My comrade ! ” he repeated. 

He uttered a furious cry and rushed at Regina 
with clinched fists. She thought he was going to 
strike her, and closed her eyes, but he had not the 
courage, so in despair and with bowed head he 
said hoarsely: 


3 00 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ Very well, we shall not meet again, since it is 
your wish.” 

The house at the Eden Reunis was full to over- 
flowing. The violins were playing a soft and de- 
lightful waltz of Gungl’s, which the reports of a 
revolver accentuated. 

The Montefiores were standing opposite one an- 
other as in Cheret’s picture, about a dozen yards 
apart, and an electric light was thrown on the 
younger, who was leaning against a large white 
target, while very slowly the other traced his out- 
line with bullet after bullet. He aimed with prodi- 
gious skill, and the black dots on the cardboard 
marked the shape of his body. The applause 
drowned the orchestra and increased continually, 
when suddenly a shrill cry of horror resounded 
from one end of the hall to the other. The women 
fainted, the violins stopped, and the spectators 
jostled each other. At the ninth ball the younger 
brother had fallen to the ground an inert mass, 
with a gaping wound in his forehead. His brother 
did not move, and there was a look of madness 
on his face, while the Comtesse de Villegby leaned 
on the ledge of her box and fanned herself calmly, 
as unmoved as any cruel goddess of ancient my- 
thology. 

The next day, between four and five, when she 
was surrounded by her usual friends in her little, 
warm Japanese drawing-room, it seemed strange 
to hear in what a languid and indifferent voice she 
exclaimed : 

“They say that an accident happened to one of 


THE MOUNTEBANKS 


301 

those famous clowns, the Monta . . . the Monti 
. . . what is his name, Tom?” 

“ The Montefiores, Madame ! ” 

And then they began to talk about the sale by 
Angele Velours, at the Hotel Drouot, before she 
married Prince Storbeck. She was going to buy 
the former Folies . 


THE CLOWN 


O N the little promontory at the end of the Es- 
planade, where the jetty is, and where all the 
winds, all the rain, and all the spray meet, 
stands the hawker’s cottage. The cabin, both walls 
and roof, was built of old planks, more or less 
covered with tar; its chinks were stopped with 
oakum, and dry wreckage was heaped up against 
it. In the middle of the room an iron pot, stand- 
ing on two bricks, served as a stove, when there 
was any coal, but as there was no chimney, a 
fire filled the room, which was ventilated only by 
a low door, with smoke; and here the whole crew 
lived, eighteen men and one woman. Some had 
undergone various terms of imprisonment, and no- 
body knew what the others were, but though they 
were all, more or less, suffering from some phys- 
ical defect and were almost old men, they were 
still all strong enough for hauling. For the 
“ Chamber of Commerce ” tolerated them there, 
and allowed them that hovel to live in, on condi- 
tion that they should be ready to haul, by day and 
by night. 

For every vessel they hauled each got a sou by 
day and two sous by night, but that was not cer- 
tain, on account of the competition of retired sail- 


THE CLOWN 


303 


ors, fishermen’s wives, laborers who had nothing to 
do, but who were all stronger than those half- 
starved wretches in the hut. 

And yet they lived there, those eighteen men and 
one woman, a domineering creature who drudged 
for a miserable existence. Were they happy? 
Certainly not. Hopeless? Not that, either; for 
they occasionally got a little besides their scanty 
pay, and then they sometimes stole fish, lumps of 
coal, things without any value to those who lost 
them, but of great value to the poor, beggarly 
thieves. 

She was a fat woman of about forty, chubby- 
faced and puffy, of whom Daddy La Bretagne, 
who was one of the eighteen, used to say : “ She 
does us honour.” 

If she had had a favourite among them, Daddy 
La Bretagne would certainly have had the greatest 
right to that privilege, for, although he was one 
of the most crippled among them, as his legs were 
partially paralyzed, he showed himself skillful 
and strong-armed as any of them, and in spite of 
his infirmities, he always managed to secure a good 
place in the row of haulers. None of them knew 
as well as he did how to inspire visitors with 
pity during the season, and to make them put 
their hands into their pockets, and he was a past 
master at cadging, so that among those empty 
stomachs and penniless rascals he had windfalls of 
victuals and coppers more frequently than fell to 
their share. 

With the coal he picked up he would make a 


304 GUY DE MAUPASSANT 

good fire under the iron pot for the whole band, 
and cook whatever he brought home with him, 
without any complaining about it, for he would 
say : 

“ It gives you a good fire to warm yourselves by 
for nothing, and the smell of my stew into the 
bargain.” 

As for his money he spent some in drink with 
the old drudge, and afterward, what was left of it, 
with the other eighteen. 

“ You see,” he used to say, “ I am just, and 
more than just. I give up to you, because it is 
your right.” 

The consequence was that they all liked Daddy 
La Bretagne, so that he gloried in it, and said 
proudly : 

“ What a pity that we are living under the Re- 
public ! These fellows would think nothing of 
making me king.” 

And one day, when he said this, the old woman 
replied : “ The king is here, old fellow ! ” And at 
the same time she presented a new comrade to 
them, who was no less ragged or wretched-looking 
than the eighteen, but quite young by the side 
of them. He was a tall, thin fellow of about 
forty, and without a parting in his long hair. He 
was dressed only in a pair of trousers and a shirt, 
which he wore outside them, like a blouse, and the 
woman said : 

“ Here, Daddy La Bretagne, you have two 
knitted vests on, so just give him one.” 

“ Why should I ? ” the hauler asked. 


THE CLOWN 


305 


“ Because I choose you to,” the woman replied. 
“ I have been living with you set of old men for a 
long time, so now I want to have a young one. 
There he is, so you must give him a vest and 
keep him here, or I shall throw you up. You 
may do as you please about it ; do you understand ? ” 

The eighteen looked at each other open- 
mouthed, and good Daddy La Bretagne scratched 
his head, and then said: 

“ What she asks is quite right, and we must 
give way.” 

Then they explained themselves and came to an 
understanding. The poor devil did not come like 
a conqueror, for he was a wretched clown who 
had just been released from prison, where he had 
undergone three years’ hard labor for an attempted 
crime, but with one exception, the best fellow in 
the world, so the people declared. 

“ And something nice for me,” the trollop 
added ; “ for I can assure you that I mean him to 
reward me for anything I may do for him.” 

From that time the household of eighteen per- 
sons consisted of nineteen, and at first all went 
well. The clown was very humble and tried not 
to be burdensome to them. Fed, clothed, and 
supplied with tobacco, he tried not to be too ex- 
acting in the other matter, and if needful, he would 
have hauled like the others, but the woman would 
not allow it. 

“ You shall not fatigue yourself, my little man,” 
she said. “ You must reserve yourself entirely for 

ft 

me. 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


3° 6 

And he did as she wished. 

And soon the eighteen, who had never been jeal- 
ous of each other, grew jealous of the favoured 
lover. Some tried to pick a quarrel with him. 
He resisted. The best fellow in the world, no 
doubt, but he was not going to be taken for a 
mussel shut up in its shell, for all that. Let them 
call him as lazy as a priest if they liked ; he 
did not mind that, but when they put hairs into 
his coffee, armfuls of rushes among his wreck- 
age, and filth into his soup, they had better look 
out ! 

“ None of that, all the lot of you, or you will see 
what I can do,” he used to say. 

They repeated their practical jokes, however, 
and he thrashed them. He did not try to find out 
who the culprits were, but attacked the first one 
he met, so much the worse for him. With a kick 
from his wooden clog (it was his specialty) he 
smashed their noses into a pulp, and having thus 
acquired the knowledge of his strength, and urged 
on by the woman, he soon became a tyrant. The 
eighteen felt that they were slaves, and their for- 
mer paradise, where concord and perfect equality 
had reigned, became a hell, and that state of 
things could not last. 

“ Ah ! ” Daddy La Bretagne growled, “ if only 
I were twenty years younger, I would nearly kill 
him ! I have my Breton’s hot head still, but my 
confounded legs are no longer any good.” 

And he boldly challenged the clown to a duel, 
in which the latter was to have his legs tied, and 


THE CLOWN 


307 


then both of them were to sit on the ground and 
hack at each other with knives. 

“ Such a duel would be perfectly fair ! ” he re- 
plied, kicking him in the side with one of his clogs, 
and the woman burst out laughing and said: 

“ At any rate, you cannot compete with him 
on equal terms, so do not worry yourself about 
it.” 

Daddy La Bretagne was lying in his corner spit- 
ting blood, and none of the rest spoke. What 
could the others do, when he, the most blustering 
of them all, had been served so? The jade had 
been right when she had brought in the intruder 
and said: 

“ The king is here, old fellow.” 

Only she ought to remember that, after all, she 
alone kept her subjects in check, and, as Daddy 
La Bretagne said, by a right object. With her to 
console them, they would no doubt have borne any- 
thing, but she was foolish enough to cut down 
their food, and not to fill their common dish as 
full as it used to be. She wanted to keep every- 
thing for the intruder, and that raised the exas- 
peration of the eighteen to its height, and so one 
night when she and the clown were asleep, among 
all these fasting men, the eighteen threw them- 
selves upon them. They wrapped the despot's 
arms and legs up in tarpaulin, and in the presence 
of the woman, who was firmly bound, they flogged 
him till he was black and blue. 

“ Yes,” old Bretagne said to me himself ; “ yes, 
Monsieur, that was our revenge. The king was 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


308 

guillotined in 1793, and so we guillotined our king 
also.” 

And he concluded with a sneer, and said : “ Ah ! 
we wished to be just, and it was not his head that 
had made him our king, so, by Jove, we settled 
Jiim” 


LILIE LALA 


W HEN I first saw her/’ said Louis d’Aran- 
del, with the dreamy look of a man who 
is trying to recall something, “ I was re- 
minded of some slow, passionate music that I once 
heard — I do not remember the composer. The 
story was of a fair woman whose hair was so 
silky, so golden, and so vibrant that after her 
death her lover had some of it strung in the 
magic bow of a violin, which afterward emitted 
such superhuman tender tones and love melodies 
that they made its hearers love until death. 

“ In her eyes there lay the mystery of deep wat- 
ers, and one was lost in their depths as in fath- 
omless seas, and at the corners of her mouth lurked 
that despotic and merciless smile of women who 
do not fear that they may be conquered, who 
rule over men like cruel queens, but whose hearts 
remain as untouched, while living a bad life, as 
those of the strictest Carmelite nuns. 

“ I have seen her angel’s head, the bands of her 
hair, that looked like plates of gold, her tall, 
graceful figure, her white, slender, childish hands, 
in stained glass windows in churches. She sug- 
gested pictures of the Annunciation, where the 


3io 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


Archangel Gabriel descends with ultramarine col- 
ored wings, and Mary is sitting at her spinning 
wheel, spinning, while uttering pious prayers, and 
she looked like the tall sister of the white lilies 
and the roses that are growing beside her. 

“ As she went through the acacia alley, when 
she appeared on some first night in the stage box 
at one of the theatres, nearly always alone, and ap- 
parently feeling life a great burden, and angry 
because she could not change the eternal, dull 
round of human enjoyment, nobody would have be- 
lieved that she lived a fast life, and that in the 
annals of gallantry she was catalogued under the 
strange name of ‘ Lilie Lala,’ and that no man 
could come into her atmosphere without being ir- 
retrievably caught, and spending his last sou on 
her. 

“ But with all that, Lilie had the voice of a 
schoolgirl, of some little innocent creature who 
still uses a skipping-rope and wears short dresses, 
and that clear, innocent laugh which reminds one 
of wedding-bells. Sometimes, for fun, I would 
kneel down before her, as before the statue of a 
saint, and clasping my hands as if in prayer, I 
used to say: ' Sancta Lilie, ora pro nobis!' 

“ One evening, at Biarritz, when the sky had the 
dull glare of intense heat and the sea was of a 
sinister, inky black, and was swelling and rolling 
enormous phosphorescent waves on the beach at 
Port-Vieux, Lilie, who was listless and strange, 
and was making holes in the sand with the heels of 
her boots, suddenly exclaimed in one of those out- 


LI LIE LALA 


311 

bursts of confidence which women sometimes feel, 
and which they regret after they are over: 

“ ‘ Ah ! My dear boy, I do not deserve to be 
canonized, and my life is rather a subject for a 
drama than a chapter from the Gospels or the 
Golden Legend. As long as I can remember any- 
thing, I can remember seeing myself wrapped in 
lace, being carried by a woman, and continually 
being made a fuss over, like children who have 
been expected for a long time and are indulged 
more than others. 

“ 4 Those kisses were so nice that I still seem 
to feel their sweetness, and I preserve the remem- 
brance of them in a little place in my heart, as 
one preserves some lucky talisman in a reliquary. 
I still seem to remember an indistinct landscape 
lost in the mist; outlines of trees, which frightened 
me as they creaked and groaned in the wind, and 
ponds on which swans were sailing. And when I 
look in the glass for a long time, merely for the 
sake of seeing myself, it seems to me as if I recog- 
nize the woman who formerly used to kiss me 
most frequently and speak to me in a more loving 
voice than any one else did. 

“‘But what happened afterward? Was I car- 
ried off, or sold to some strolling circus owner 
by a dishonest servant? I do not know, I have 
never been able to find out, but I remember that 
my whole childhood was spent in a circus which 
traveled from fair to fair, and from place to place, 
with files of vans, processions of animals, and 
noisy music. 


312 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ * I was as tiny as an insect, and they taught 
me difficult tricks, to dance on the tight-rope and 
to perform on the slack-rope. ... I was beaten 
as if I had been a bit of plaster, and I more fre- 
quently had a piece of dry bread to gnaw than a 
slice of meat. But I remember that one day I 
slipped under one of the vans and stole a basin 
of soup, which one of the clowns was carefully 
making for his three learned dogs. 

“ * I had neither friends nor relations ; I was 
employed on the dirtiest jobs, like the lowest stable 
help, and I was covered with bruises and scars. 
Of the whole company, however, the one who beat 
me the most, who was the least sparing of his 
thumps, and who continually made me suffer, as if 
it gave him pleasure, was the manager and pro- 
prietor, a kind of vicious old brute, whom every- 
body feared like the plague, a miser who was con- 
tinually complaining of the receipts, who hid away 
the crown pieces in his mattress, invested his mon- 
ey in the funds, and cut down the salary of every- 
body, as far as he could. 

“ ‘ His name was Rapha Ginestous. Any other 
child but myself would have succumbed to such a 
constant martyrdom; but I grew up, and the older 
I grew the prettier and more desirable I became, 
so that when I was fifteen, men were already be- 
ginning to write me love letters and to throw bou- 
quets to me in the arena. I felt also that all 
the men in the company were watching me, and 
were coveting me as their prey; that their lustful 
looks rested on my pink tights, and followed the 


LILIE LALA 


313 


graceful outlines of my body when I was posing 
on the rope that stretched from one end of the cir- 
cus to the other, or when I jumped through the 
paper hoops at full gallop. 

“ They were no longer the same, and spoke to 
me in a totally different tone of voice. . . . 
They tried to come into my dressing-room when 
I was changing my dress, and Rapha Ginestous 
seemed to have lost his head, and his heart 
throbbed visibly when he came near me. Yes, he 
had the audacity to propose things to me which 
covered my cheeks and forehead with blushes, 
and. which filled me with disgust, and as I felt a 
fierce hatred for him, and detested him with all 
my soul and all my strength, as I wished to make 
him suffer the tortures which he had inflicted on 
me a hundredfold, I used him as the target at 
which I was constantly aiming. 

“ * Instinctively I employed every cunning per- 
fidy, every artful coquetry, every lie, every artifice 
which upsets the strongest and most skeptical and 
places them at our mercy, like submissive animals. 
He loved me, he really loved me, that sensual crea- 
ture, who had no respect for women and cared for 
them only as they ministered to his pleasure. He 
loved me as old men love, with frenzy, with sub- 
mission to all my whims. ... I held him as in 
a leash, and did whatever I liked with him. 

“ ‘ I was much more manageress than he was 
manager, and the poor wretch wasted away in vain 
hopes and in useless transports; he had not even 
touched the tips of my fingers, and was reduced 


314 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


to bestowing his caresses on my columbine shoes, 
my tights, and my wigs. And I cared not that for 
it, you understand! Not the slightest familiarity, 
and he began to grow thin over it, fell ill, and 
almost became idiotic. And when he implored me 
and promised to marry me, with his eyes full of 
tears, I shouted with laughter; I reminded him 
of how he had beaten, abused, and humiliated me, 
and had often made me wish for death. As soon 
as he left me he emptied bottles of gin and whis- 
ky, and got so abominably drunk that he rolled 
under the table, in order to drown his sorrow and 
forget his desire. 

“ ‘ He covered me with jewels and tried every- 
thing he could to tempt me to become his wife, 
and in spite of my inexperience in life, he con- 
sulted me with regard to everything he undertook, 
and one evening, after I had stroked his face 
with my hand, I persuaded him without any diffi- 
culty to make his will, by which he left me all his 
savings, and the circus and everything belonging 
to it. 

“ ‘ It was in the middle of winter, near Mos- 
cow ; it snowed continually, and one almost burned 
one’s self at the stoves in trying to keep warm. 
Rapha Ginestous had had supper brought into the 
largest van, which was his, after the performance, 
and for hours we ate and drank. I was very nice 
to him and filled his glass every moment; I even 
sat on his knee and kissed him. And all his 
love and the fumes of the alcohol of the wine 
mounted to his head and gradually made him 


LILIE LALA 


315 


so helplessly intoxicated that he fell from his chair 
inert, and as if he had been struck by lightning, 
without opening his eyes or saying a word. 

“ ‘ The rest of the troupe were asleep and the 
lights were out in all the little windows, and not a 
sound was to be heard, while the snow continued 
to fall in large flakes. So, after putting out the 
kerosene lamp, I opened the door, and, taking the 
drunkard by the feet as if he had been a bale 
of goods, I threw him out into that white shroud. 

“ ‘ The next morning the stiff and distorted 
body of Rapha Ginestous was picked up, and as 
everybody knew his inveterate drinking habits, no 
one thought of instituting an inquiry or of accus- 
ing me of a crime, and thus I was avenged and 
had a yearly income of nearly fifteen thousand 
francs. What, after all, is the good of being 
honest and of pardoning our enemies, as the Gos- 
pel bids us ? ’ 

“ And now,” Louis d’Arandel said in conclu- 
sion, “suppose we go and have a cocktail or two 
at the Casino, for I do not think that I have ever 
talked so much in my life before.” 


MAMMA STIRLING 


T ALL, slim, her figure well defined under her 
transparent dress of gauze, which fell in 
straight folds, with gold bracelets on her 
slender wrists, with languor in her rich voice, 
and something undulating and feline in the rhyth- 
mical swing of her wrist and hips, Tatia Caroly 
was singing one of those sweet Creole songs which 
call up some far distant fairyland and unknown 
caresses, for which the lips remain always thirst- 
ing. 

Footit, the clown, was leaning against the piano. 
His blackened face, and his mouth that looked like 
the red gash from a sabre cut, and his wide-open 
eyes, all expressed feelings of the most extravagant 
emotion, while some niggers squatted on the 
ground and accompanied the orchestra by strum- 
ming on some yellow, hollow gourds. 

But what made the women and children laugh 
most in the pantomime of the “ New Circus ” was 
the incessant quarrel between an enormous Danish 
hound and a poor old supernumerary, who was 
blackened like a negro minstrel and dressed like a 
mulatto woman. The dog was always annoying 
him, following him, and snapping at his legs and 
at his old wig with his sharp teeth, and he tore 


MAMMA STIRLING 


317 

his coat and his silk pocket-handkerchief whenever 
he could get hold of it. The man would positively 
allow himself to be molested and bitten, playing 
his part with dull resignation, with the mechanical 
unconsciousness of a man who has come down in 
the world, and who gains his livelihood as best he 
can, and who has already endured worse things 
than that. 

Half turning round to the two clubmen with 
whom she had just been dining at the Cafe An- 
glais, as she handled her large fan of black feath- 
ers with a pretty, supple motion of her wrist, 
while the light fell on to the nape of her fair neck, 
Noele de Frejus exclaimed: “Wherever did they 
unearth that horrible, grotesque figure ? ” 

Lord Shelley, who was a pillar of the circus, and 
who knew the performances, the length of time the 
acrobats had been performing, and the private his- 
tory of all of them, whether clowns or circus riders, 
replied : “ Do not you recognize him, my dear ? ” 

“That lump of soot? Are you joking ?” 

“ He certainly has changed very much, poor fel- 
low, and not for the better. James Stirling was, 
however, once a model of manly beauty and ele- 
gance, and he led such an extravagant life that 
all sorts of stories were rife about him, and many 
people declared that he was some high-class adven- 
turer. ... At any rate, he thought no more 
of danger than he did of smoking a good cigar. 

“ Do you not remember him at the Hippodrome, 
when he stood on the bare back of a horse and 
drove five others tandem at full gallop and without 


~UY DE MAUPASSANT 


318 

making a mistake, but checking them or urging 
them on with his thin, muscular hands, just as he 
pleased ? And he seemed to be riveted to the 
horse, as if he had been held on by invisible 
hands.” 

“ Yes, I remember him . . . James Stirling,” 
she said. “ The circus rider, James Stirling, on 
whose account that tall girl, Caro, who was also 
a circus rider, gave that old stager Blanche Tau- 
pin, a cut right and left across the face with her 
riding whip, because she had tried to get him from 
her. . . . But what can have happened to bring 
him down to such a position ? ” 

Horrible, hairy monkeys, grimacing under their 
red and blue masks, had invaded the arena, and 
with their hair hanging down on their bare shoul- 
ders, looking very funny with their long tails, their 
gray skin tights and their velvet breeches, these 
female dancers twisted, jumped, hopped, and 
drew their lascivious and voluptuous circle more 
closely round Chocolat, who shook the red skirts 
of his coat, rolled his eyes, and showed his large 
white teeth in a foolish smile, as if he were the 
prey to irresistible desire, and yet terribly afraid 
of what might happen; and Lord Shelley, helping 
himself to some grapes out of a basket that Noele 
de Frejus offered him, said: “It is not a very 
cheerful story, but then true stories rarely are. 
At the time when he was still unknown, and when 
he used to have to tighten his belt more frequently 
for lack of enough to eat and drink, James Stir- 
ling followed the destinies of a circus which trav- 


MAMMA STIRLING 


319 


eled with its vans from fair to fair and from place 
to place, and fell in love with a gypsy columbine, 
who also formed part of this wandering, half- 
starved company. 

“ She was not twenty and astonished the others 
by her rash boldness, her absolute contempt for 
danger and obstacles, and her strange and adroit 
strength. She charmed them also by a magic at- 
traction which came from her hair, which was 
darker than a starless night, from her large, black, 
coaxing, velvety eyes, that were concealed by the 
fringe of such long lashes that they curled up- 
ward, from her scented skin, that was as velvety 
as rice-paper, and every touch of which was a sug- 
gestive and tempting caress, from her firm, full, 
smiling, childlike mouth, which uttered nothing 
but laughter, jokes, and love songs, and seemed 
made for kissing. 

“ She rode barebacked horses without bit or bri- 
dle, stretched herself at full length on their backs 
as if on a bed, her flowing hair mingling with their 
manes, swaying her supple body to their most im- 
petuous movements, at other times standing al- 
most on their shoulders or on the croup, while 
she juggled with looking-glasses, brass balls, 
knives that flashed as they twirled rapidly round 
in the smoky light of the paraffin lamps that were 
fastened to the tent poles. 

“ Her name was Sacha, that pretty Slavonic 
name which has such a sweet and strange sound, 
and she loved him entirely, because he was hand* 
some, strong, and spoke to women very gently, as 


320 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


one talks to quite little children who are easily 
frightened and made to cry, and it was on her ac- 
count that in a quarrel in Holland he knocked 
down an Italian wild beast tamer, with a blow 
between the two eyes. 

“ They adored each other so that they never 
thought of their poverty, but were just as devoted 
when they had nothing to eat, not even an unripe 
apple stolen from an orchard nor a lump of bread 
which they had begged on the road of some chari- 
table soul. And they were often obliged to stop 
for the night in the open country, and shivered 
in the old, badly-closed vans, and had to be very 
sparing with the wood, and could not light up 
the snow with those large bivouac fires, whose 
smoke rises in such fantastic, spiral curls, and 
whose flames look like a spot of blood at a dis- 
tance, seen through the mist. 

“ It was one of those bohemian, quasi-matri- 
monial arrangements which are often more endur- 
ing than ours, and in which a man and a woman 
do not part for a mere caprice, a dream, or a piece 
of folly. 

“ By-and-by she was no longer good for any- 
thing, and had to give up appearing on the pro- 
gram, for she was enceinte. James Stirling worked 
for both, and thought that he should die of grief 
when, after three days of intense suffering, she 
died with her hand in his. 

“ And now, all alone, crushed by grief, so ill 
that at times he thought his heart had stopped, 
the circus rider lived for the child which the dead 


MAMMA STIRLING 


321 


woman had left him as a legacy. He bought a 
goat so that it might have pure milk, and brought 
it up with such infinite, deep, womanly tender- 
ness that the child called him ‘ Mamma/ and in 
the circus they nicknamed him ‘ Mamma Stirling/ 

“ The boy was like his mother, and one might 
have said that he had brought James luck, for he 
had made his mark, was receiving a good income, 
and appeared in every performance. Well-made 
and agile, and profiting by the lessons which he 
received at the circus, little Stirling was soon fit 
to appear on the posters, and the night when he 
made his first appearance at Franconi’s old Tom 
Pears, the clown, who understood such matters 
better than most, exclaimed : 

“ ‘ My boy, you will make your way if you 
don’t break your neck first ! ’ 

“ ‘ I will take care of that, Monsieur Pears/ the 
lad replied, with a careless shug of his shoulders. 

“ He was extremely daring, and when he threw 
himself from one trapeze to the other, in a bold 
flight through the air, one might almost have 
fancied in the silvery electric light that he was 
some fabulous bird with folded wings, and he exe- 
cuted all his feats with unequaled natural grace, 
without seeming to make an effort, but he un- 
braced his limbs of steel and condensed all his 
strength in one supreme, mad leap. His chest, 
under its pearl-gray tights, hardly rose, and there 
was not a drop of perspiration on his forehead 
among the light curls which framed it like a 
golden halo. 


322 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ He had an almost disdainful manner of smil- 
ing at the public, as if he were an artist who 
loves his profession and who is amused at danger, 
rather than an acrobat who is paid to amuse peo- 
ple after dinner, and during his most difficult feats 
he often uttered a shrill cry like that of some 
wild beast which defies the sportsman as it falls 
on its prey. But that sportsman is always on the 
alert, and he is the Invisible, which closes the 
brightest eyes and the most youthful lips forever. 
In spite of one’s self, one was excited by it and 
could have wished, from a superstitious instinct, 
that he would not continually give that defiant cry, 
which seemed to give him pleasure. 

“ James Stirling watched over him as the mother 
of an actress does who knows that she is in some 
corner and fears dangerous connections in which 
the strongest are entangled and ruined, and they 
lived together in a boarding-house near the Arc 
de Triomphe. It was a very simple apartment, 
with immense posters of every colour and in every 
language, on which the name of Stirling appeared 
in large, striking letters, pinned to the wall ; pho- 
tographs with inscriptions, and tinsel wreaths, 
though there were two of real laurel, that were 
covered with dust and were gradually falling to 
pieces. 

“ One night the young fellow for the first time 
did not come home, and returned only in time for 
rehearsal, tired, with blue rims under his eyes, his 
lips cracked and feverish, and with pale cheeks, but 
with such a look of happiness and such a peculiar 


MAMMA STIRLING 323 

light in his eyes that Mamma Stirling felt as if he 
had been stabbed, and had not the strength to find 
fault with him; and, emboldened, radiant, longing 
to give vent to the mad joy which filled his whole 
being, to express his sensations and recount his 
happiness, like a lad talking to his elder brother, 
he told James Stirling his love intrigue from be- 
ginning to end, and how much in love he was with 
the fair-haired girl who had clasped him in her 
arms and told him she loved him. 

“ It had been coming for some time, he said. 
She went to every performance, and always occu- 
pied the same box. She used to send him letters 
by the usher, letters which smelled like bunches 
of violets, and she always smiled at him when he 
came into the ring to bow to the public, amid the 
applause and recalls; and it was that smile, those 
red, half-opened lips, which seemed made for kiss- 
es and tender words, that attracted him like some 
strange, fragrant fruit. Sometimes she came with 
gentlemen in evening dress and with gardenias in 
their buttonholes, who seemed to bore her terribly, 
if not to disgust her. And he was happy, al- 
though he bad never yet spoken to her, that she 
had not that smile for them which she had for 
him, and that she appeared dull and sad, like some- 
body who is homesick or who has a great longing 
for something. 

“ On other evenings she would be all alone, with 
black pearls in the lobes of her small ears that 
were like pink shells, and would get up and leave 
her box as soon as he had finished his perform- 


324 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


ance on the trapeze . . . while the evening before 
she had carried him off almost forcibly in her 
carriage, without even giving him time to get rid 
of his tights and the india-rubber armlets that 
he wore on his wrists. Oh ! that return in the 
cold, in the semi-obscurity, through which the 
trembling light of the street lamps shone, that 
warm clasp of her arms round him which impris- 
oned him and by degrees drew him close to that 
warm body whose slightest throb and shiver he 
felt, as if she had been clothed in impalpable gauze, 
and which intoxicated him. 

“ And those despotic, imperious, divine kisses, 
when she pressed her lips to his, as if to make 
him dream of an eternity of bliss, intoxicating, 
overwhelming him with delight! And the carriage 
rolled on at a quick trot, through the silence of 
the snow, and they did not even hear the noise 
of the wheels, which buried themselves in that 
white carpet as if it had been cotton-wool. Sud- 
denly, however, they began talking at random, 
like people who are not quite themselves and who 
have uncorked too many bottles of champagne on 
a benefit night. 

“ She questioned him and laughed at his theatri- 
cal slang, wrapped her otter-skin rug round his 
legs, and murmured : ‘ Come close to me, darling ; 
at any rate, you are not cold, I hope ? ’ 

“ When they reached her pretty little house, 
with old tapestry and delicate-coloured plush hang- 
ings, they found supper waiting for them, and she 
amused herself by waiting on him herself with the 


MAMMA STIRLING 


325 


manners of a saucy waitress. And then there were 
kisses, constant, insatiable, maddening kisses, and 
the lad exclaimed, with glistening eyes, at the 
thoughts of future meetings : If you only 
knew how pretty she is ! And then it is nicer 
than anything else in the world to obey her, to 
do whatever she wants, and to allow one’s self to 
be loved as she wishes ! ’ 

“ Mamma Stirling was very uneasy, but resigned 
himself to the inevitable, and seeing how infatu- 
ated the boy was, he took care not to be too sharp 
with him or to keep too tight a hand upon the 
reins. The woman who had entangled the lad 
was a fast woman, and nothing else, and, after 
all, the old stager preferred that to one of those 
excitable women of the world, who are as dan- 
gerous for a man as the plague, whereas a girl 
of that sort can be taken and given up again, and 
one does not risk one’s heart at the same time as 
one does one’s skin, for a man knows what they are 
worth. He was mistaken, however. Nelly d’Ar- 
gine — she is married to a Yankee now and has 
gone to New York with him — was one of those 
vicious women whom a man can only wish his 
worst enemy to have, and she had merely taken a 
fancy to the young fellow because she was bored 
to death, and because her senses were roused like 
smouldering embers which come to life again when 
a fire is nearly out. 

“ Unfortunately, the boy had taken the matter 
seriously, and was very jealous, and as suspicious 
as a deer, and never imagined that this love affair 


326 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


could come to an end; and, proud as he was, with 
his hot gypsy blood, he wished to be the only lover, 
the only master, who could not be shown the door, 
like a troublesome and importunate parasite. 

“ Stirling had saved some money by dint of a 
hard struggle and had invested it in the Funds 
against a rainy day, when he should be too old 
to work and to gain a livelihood, and when he 
saw how madly in love his son was and how ob- 
stinate in his lamentable folly he gave him all his 
savings and deprived himself of his stout and gin 
so that the boy might have money to give away 
and might continue to be happy and not have 
any cares, and so between them they supported 
Nelly. 

“ Stirling’s debts accumulated, and he mortgaged 
his salary for years in advance to the usurers who 
haunt circuses as if they were gambling hells, who 
are on the watch for passions, poverty, and dis- 
appointments, who keep plenty of ready-stamped 
bill paper in their pockets, as well as money, which 
they haggle over coin by coin. But in spite of 
all this the lad sang, did his turn, and amused 
himself, and would say, as he kissed his father on 
both cheeks : ‘ How kind you are in spite of every- 
thing ! ’ 

“ After a month he became too exacting ; he 
followed her, questioned her, and worried her with 
perpetual scenes, and Nelly found that she had 
had enough of her gymnast; he was a toy which 
she had done with and worn out, and which was 
now only in her way and only fit to throw into 


MAMMA STIRLING 


327 


the gutter. She was satiated with him, and be- 
came once more the tranquil woman whom noth- 
ing can move and who baits her traps quite calmly 
in order to find a husband and make a fresh start 
And so she turned the young fellow out of doors 
as if he had been some beggar soliciting alms. 
He did not complain, however, and did not say 
anything to Mamma Stirling, but worked as he 
had done in the past and mastered himself with 
superhuman energy, so as to hide the grief that 
was gnawing at his heart and killing him, and the 
disenchantment with everything that was making 
him sick of life. 

“ Some time afterward, when there was to be a 
special performance for the officers, seeing Nelly 
d’Argine there in a box surrounded by her usual 
admirers, appearing indififerent to everything that 
was going on and not even apparently noticing 
that he was performing and was being heartily 
applauded, he threw his trapeze forward as far 
as he could, at the end of the performance, and, 
exerting all his strength and certain that he should 
fall beyond the protecting net, he flung himself fu- 
riously into space. 

“ A cry of horror resounded from one end of 
the house to the other when he was picked up 
disfigured and with nearly every bone in his body 
broken. The unfortunate young fellow was no 
longer breathing, his chest was crushed in and 
blood-stained froth was issuing from his lips, and 
Nelly d’Argine made haste to leave the house 
with her friends, saying, in a tone of annoyance : 


328 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ * It is very disgusting to come in the hopes of 
being amused and to witness an accident ! ’ 

“ And Mamma Stirling, who was ruined and in 
utter despair, and who cared for nothing more in 
this world, after that took to drinking, would get 
constantly drunk, and rolled from public house 
to public house and bar to bar, and as the worst 
glass of vitriol still costs two sous he became re- 
duced to undertaking the part which you have 
seen, to dabble in the water, to blacken himself, 
and to allow himself to be bitten. 

“ Ah ! What a wretched thing life is for those 
who are kind and who have too much heart ! ” 


AN ARTIST 


A H, Monsieur!” said the old juggler, “it is 
is only a matter of practice and habit, that 
is all. One must, of course, have a little 
talent in that direction and not be butter-fingered, 
but what is chiefly necessary is patience and daily 
practice for long, long years.” 

His modesty surprised me all the more because 
he was the cleverest performer of the kind I had 
ever seen, though most of them are infatuated 
with their own skill. I had frequently seen him 
in some circus or other, or even in travelling 
shows, as had every one, performing the trick that 
consists of putting a man or woman with extended 
arms against a wooden target and in throwing 
knives from a distance between their fingers and 
round their head. There is nothing very extraor- 
dinary in it, after all, when one knows the tricks 
of the trade, and that the knives are not the least 
sharp, and stick into the wood at some distance 
from the flesh. It is the rapidity of the throws, 
the glitter of the blades, the curve which the han- 
dles make toward their living aim which give an 
air of danger to an exhibition that has become com- 
monplace and only requires very middling skill. 
But here there was no trick and no deception 


330 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


and no dust thrown into the eyes. It was done 
in good earnest and in all sincerity. The knives 
were as sharp as razors, and the old mountebank 
planted them close to the flesh, exactly in the an- 
gle between the fingers, and surrounded the head 
with a perfect halo of knives, and the neck with 
a collar, from which nobody could have extri- 
cated himself without cutting his carotid artery, 
while to increase the difficulty the old fellow went 
through the performance blindfolded, his whole 
face being covered with a close mask of thick oil- 
cloth. 

Naturally, like other great artists, he was not 
understood by the crowd, who confounded him 
with vulgar tricksters, and his mask only appeared 
to them a trick the more, and a very common 
trick in the bargain. “ He must think us very 
stupid,” they said. “ How could he possibly aim 
without having his eyes open ? ” And they thought 
there must be imperceptible holes in the oilcloth, 
a sort of lattice work concealed in the material. 
It was useless for him to allow the public to ex- 
amine the mask for themselves before the exhibi- 
tion began. It was all very well that they could 
not discover any trick, but they were only all the 
more convinced that they were being tricked. Did 
not the people know that they ought to be tricked ? 

I had recognized a great artist in the old jug- 
gler, and I was quite sure that he was altogether 
incapable of any trickery, and I told him so, while 
expressing my admiration ; and he had been 
touched, both by my admiration and, above all, 


AN ARTIST 


33 1 


by the justice I had done him. Thus we became 
good friends, and he explained to me, very mod- 
estly, the real trick which the crowd cannot un- 
derstand, the eternal trick comprised in these 
simple words : “ To be gifted by nature, and to 

practice every day for long, long years.” 

He had been especially struck by my saying that 
I believed him incapable of trickery. “ Yes,” he 
said to me ; “ quite incapable. Incapable to a de- 
gree which you cannot imagine. If I were to tell 
you! But where would be the use?” 

His face clouded over and his eyes filled with 
tears, but I did not venture to force his confidence. 
My looks, however, were no doubt not as discreet 
as my silence, and begged him to speak, and so he 
responded to their mute appeal. “ After all,” he 
said, “why should I not tell you about it? You 
will understand me.” And he added, with a look 
of sudden ferocity : “ She understood it, at any 

rate ! ” 

“Who?” I asked. 

“ My faithless wife,” he replied. “ Ah ! Mon- 
sieur, what an abominable creature she was, if you 
only knew ! Yes, she understood it too well, too 
well, and that is why I hate her so; even more on 
that account than for having deceived me. For 
that is a natural fault, is it not, and may be par- 
doned ? But the other thing was a crime, a horrible 
crime.” 

The woman who stood against the wooden tar- 
get every night , with her arms stretched out and 
her fingers extended, and whom the old juggler 


33 2 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


fitted with gloves and with a halo formed of his 
knives, which were as sharp as razors and which 
he planted close to her, was his wife. She might 
have been a woman of forty, and must have been 
fairly pretty, but with a perverse prettiness. She 
had an impudent mouth, a mouth that was at the 
same time sensual and bad, with the lower lip too 
thick for the thin, dry upper lip. 

I had several times noticed that every time he 
planted a knife in the board she uttered a laugh, 
so low as scarcely to be heard, but which was very 
significant when one heard it, for it was a hard 
and very mocking laugh, but I had always attrib- 
uted that sort of reply to some artifice which the 
occasion required. It was intended, I thought, to 
accentuate the danger she incurred and the con- 
tempt that she felt for it, thanks to the sureness 
of the thrower’s hands, and so I was very much 
surprised when the old man said to me : 

“ Have you observed her laugh, I say ? Her 
evil laugh, which makes fun of me, and her cow- 
ardly laugh, which defies me? Yes, cowardly, be- 
cause she knows that nothing can happen to her, 
nothing, in spite of all she deserves, in spite of 
all that I ought to do to her, in spite of all that I 
want to do to her.” 

“ What do you want to do ? ” 

“ Confound it ! Cannot vou guess ? I want to 
kill her.” 

“ To kill her because she has ” 

“ Because she has deceived me? No, no, not 
that, I tell you again. I have forgiven her for 


AN ARTIST 


333 


that, a Jong time ago, and I am too much accus- 
tomed to it! But the worst of it is that the first 
time I forgave her, when I told her that, all the 
same, I might some day have my revenge by cut- 
ting her throat, if I chose, without seeming to do 
it on purpose, as if it were an accident, mere 

awkwardness ” 

“ Oh ! So you said that to her ? ” 

“ Of course I did, and I meant it. I thought I 
might be able to do it, for, you see, I had the per- 
fect right to do so. It was so simple, so easy, 
so tempting! Just think! A mistake of less than 
half an inch and her skin would be cut at the 
neck where the jugular vein is, and the jugular 
would be severed. My knives cut very well ! And 
when once the jugular is cut — good-by! The blood 
would spurt out, one, two, three red jets, and all 
would be over; she would be dead, and I should 
have had my revenge ! ” 

“ That is true, certainly, horribly true ! ” 

“ And without any risk to me, eh ? An acci- 
dent, that is all; bad luck, one of those mistakes 
which happen every day in our business. What 
could they accuse me of? Accidental homicide, 
that would be all! They would even pity me, 
rather than accuse me. ‘ My wife ! My poor 
wife ! ’ I should say, sobbing. * My wife, who is 
so necessary to me, who is half the bread-winner, 
who takes part in my performance ! ’ You must 
acknowledge that I should be pitied ! ” 

“ Certainly ; there is not the least doubt about 

that.” 


334 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


“ And you must allow that such a revenge would 
be a very nice revenge, the best possible revenge 
which I could have with impunity ? ” 

“ Evidently that is so.” 

“Very well! But when I told her so, just as I 
have told you, only more forcibly, threatening her, 
as I was mad with rage and ready to do the deed 
that I had dreamed of on the spot, what do you 
think she said?” 

“ That you were a good fellow, and would cer- 
tainly not have the atrocious courage to ” 

“ Tut ! tut ! tut ! I am not such a good fellow 
as you think. I am not afraid of blood, and that 
I have proved already, though it would be useless 
to tell you how and where. But I had no need 
to prove it to her, for she knows that I am capa- 
ble of a good many things, even of crime.” 

“ And she was not frightened ? ” 

“ No. She merely replied that I could not do 
what I said; you understand. That I could not do 
it!” 

“ Why not?” 

“ Ah ! Monsieur, so you do not understand ? 
Why do you not? Have I not explained to you 
by what constant, long daily practice I have 
learned to plant my knives without seeing what I 
am doing ? ” 

“Yes; well, what then?” 

“ Well ! Cannot you understand what she has 
understood with such terrible results, that now my 
hand would no longer obey me if I wished to make 
a mistake as I threw?” 


AN ARTIST 


335 


“ Is it possible ? ” 

“ Nothing is truer, I am sorry to say. For I 
really have wished to have my revenge, which I 
have dreamed of and which I thought so easy. 
Exasperated by that bad woman’s insolence and 
confidence in her own safety, I have several times 
made up my mind to kill her, and have exerted all 
my energy and all my skill to make my knives 
fly aside when I threw them to make a border 
round her neck. I tried with all my might to 
make them deviate half an inch, just enough to 
cut her throat. I wanted to, and I have never 
succeeded, never. And always the creature’s hor- 
rible laugh makes fun of me, always, always.” 

And with a deluge of tears, with something 
like a roar of unsatiated and muzzled rage, he 
ground his teeth as he wound up : “ She knows 

me, the jade; she is in the secret of my work, of 
my patience, of my trick, routine, whatever you 
may call it ! She lives in my innermost being, and 
sees into it more closely than you do, or than I 
do myself. She knows what a faultless machine 
I have become, the machine of which she makes 
fun, the machine which is too well wound up, the 
machine which cannot get out of order, and she 
knows that I cannot make a mistake.” 


THE DEBT 


P ST! PST! Come with me, you handsome 
fellow. I am very kind, as you will see. 
Do come up. At any rate you will be able 
to warm yourself, for I have a capital fire at 
home.” 

But nothing enticed the foot passengers, neither 
being called a handsome fellow, which term she 
applied also quite impartially to old or fat men, 
nor the promise of pleasure, emphasized by a ca- 
ressing ogle and smile, nor even the promise of 
a good fire, which was so attractive in the bitter 
December wind. And tall Fanny continued her 
walk, and the night advanced and foot passengers 
grew scarcer. In another hour the streets would 
be absolutely deserted, and unless she could man- 
age to pick up some belated drunken man she 
would be obliged to return home alone. 

And yet tall Fanny was a beautiful woman ! 
With her head like a Bacchante and her body like 
a goddess, in all the full splendour of her twenty- 
three years, she deserved something better than 
this miserable life, where she could not even pick 
ujp the five francs which she needed for the next 
<fty. But there ! In this cruel Paris, in this 
swarming crowd of competitors who all jostled 


THE DEBT 


337 


each other, courtesans, like artists, did not attain 
to eminence until their later years. In that they 
resembled precious stones, as the most valuable of 
them are those that have been set the oftenest. 

And that was why tall Fanny, who was later 
to become one of the richest and most brilliant 
stars of Parisian gallantry, was walking about the 
streets on this bitter December night without a 
sou in her pocket, in spite of her head like a 
Bacchante and her body like a goddess, and in 
all the full splendour of her twenty-three years. 

However, it was too late now to hope to meet 
anybody; there was not a single foot passenger 
about; the street was decidedly empty, dull, and 
lifeless. Nothing was to be heard, except the 
whistling of sudden gusts of wind, and nothing 
was to be seen except the flickering gaslights, 
which looked like dying butterflies. Well ! The 
only thing was to return home alone. 

But suddenly tall Fanny saw a human form 
standing on the pavement at the next crossing, 
and whoever it was, it seemed to be hesitating and 
uncertain which way to go. The figure, which 
was very small and slight, was wrapped in a long 
cloak which reached almost to the ground. 

“ Perhaps he is a hunchback,” the girl said to 
herself. “ They like tall women ! ” And she 
walked quickly toward him, from habit already 
saying: “ Pst! Pst! Come home with me, you 
handsome little fellow ! ” What luck ! The man 
did not walk away, but came toward Fanny, al- 
though somewhat timidly, while she went to meet 


338 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


him, repeating coaxing words, so as to reassure 
him. She went all the quicker, as she saw that 
he was staggering with the zigzag walk of a 
drunken man, and she thought to herself : “ When 
once they sit down, there is no possibility of get- 
ting these beggars up again, and they want to go 
to sleep just where they are. I only hope I shall 
get to him before he falls down.” 

Luckily, she reached him just in time to catch 
him in her arms, but as soon as she had done so 
she almost let him fall in her astonishment. It 
was neither a drunken man nor a hunchback, but 
a child of twelve or thirteen, in an overcoat, who 
was crying, and who said, in a weak voice : “ I 

beg your pardon, Madame, I beg your pardon. 
If you only knew how hungry and cold I am ! I 
beg your pardon ! Oh ! I am so cold ! ” 

“ Poor child ! ” she said, putting her arms round 
him and kissing him. And she carried him off 
with a full but happy heart, and while he continued 
to sob she said to him mechanically : “ Don’t be 

frightened, my little man. You will see how kind 
I can be! And then you can warm yourself; I 
have a capital fire.” But the fire was out; the 
room, however, was warm, and the child said, as 
soon as they got in : “ Oh ! How comfortable 

it is here! It is a great deal better than the 
streets, I can tell you! And I have been living 
in the streets for six days.” He began to cry 
again, and added : “ I beg your pardon, Madame. 
I have eaten nothing for two days.” 

Tall Fanny opened her cupboard, which had 


THE DEBT 


339 


glass doors. The middle shelf held all her linen, 
and on the upper one there was a box of Albert 
biscuits, a drop of brandy at the bottom of a bot- 
tle, and a few small lumps of sugar in a cup. 
With that, and some water out of the bottle, she 
concocted a sort of drink, which he swallowed 
ravenously, and when he had done he wished to 
tell his story, which he did, yawning all the time. 

His grandfather (the only one of his relations 
whom he had ever known), who had been painter 
and decorator at Soisson, had died about a month 
previously; but before his death he had said to 
him : “ When I am gone, little man, you will find 
among my papers a letter to my brother, who is 
in business in Paris. You must take it to him, 
and he will be certain to take care of you. How- 
ever, in any case you must go to Paris, for you 
have a taste for painting, and only there can you 
hope to become an artist.” 

When the old man was dead (he died in the 
hospital), the child started, dressed in an old coat 
of his grandfather’s, and with thirty francs, all 
that the old man had left behind him, in his pocket. 
But when he got to Paris there was no one of 
that name at the address mentioned on the letter. 
The dead man’s brother had left the house six 
months before, and nobody knew where he had 
gone, and so the child was alone, and for a few 
days he managed to exist on what he had over, 
after paying for his journey. When he had spent 
his last franc, he wandered about the streets, as 
he had no money with which to pay for a bed, 


340 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


buying a sou’s worth of bread at a time, until 
for the last forty-eight hours, when he had 
been without anything, absolutely without any- 
thing. 

He told her all this while half asleep, amid 
sobs and yawns, so that the girl did not venture 
to ask him any more questions, in spite of her cu- 
riosity, but, on the contrary, cut him short, and 
took off his coat, while she listened, and only in- 
terrupted him to kiss him, and to say to him: 
“ There, there, my poor child ! You shall tell me 
the rest to-morrow. You cannot go on now, so 
go to bed and have a good sleep.” And as soon 
as he had finished, she made him lie down, and 
he immediately fell into a profound sleep. Then 
she also went to sleep, crying to herself, without 
exactly knowing why. 

The next day they breakfasted and dined to- 
gether at a cheap eating house, on money that she 
had borrowed, and when it was dark she said to 
the child: “Wait for me here; I will come for 
you at closing time.” She came back sooner, how- 
ever, about ten o’clock. She had twelve francs, 
which she gave him, telling him that she had 
earned them, and she continued, with a laugh : “ I 
feel that I shall make some more. I am in luck 
this evening, and you have brought it me. Do 
not be impatient, but have some milk punch while 
you are waiting for me.” 

She kissed him before she went, and the kind 
girl felt real maternal happiness as she went out. 
An hour later, however, she was arrested by the 


/ 

THE DEBT 341 

police for having been found in a prohibited place, 
and she was taken to St. Lazare. 

And the child, who was turned out by the pro- 
prietor at closing time, and then driven from the 
furnished lodgings the next morning, where they 
told him that “ tall Fanny was in quod,” began 
his wretched vagabond life in the streets again, 
with only the twelve francs to depend on. 

****** * 

Fifteen years afterward the newspapers an- 
nounced one morning that the famous Fanny Clai- 
ret, the celebrated trapeze performer, whose ca- 
prices had caused a revolution in high life, that 
queen of frail beauties for whom three men had 
committed suicide and so many others had ruined 
themselves, that incomparable living statue, who 
had attracted all Paris to the theatre where she 
personified Venus in her flesh-coloured tights, made 
of woven air, had been shut up in a lunatic asy- 
lum. She had been seized suddenly; it was an at- 
tack of general paralysis, and as her debts were 
enormous, when her estate had been liquidated, 
she would have to end her days at La Sal- 
petriere. 

“ No, certainly not ! ” Frangois Guerland, the 
painter, said to himself, when he reached the notice 
of it in the papers. “ No, the great Fanny shall 
certainly not end like that.” For it was certainly 
she ; there could be no doubt about it. For a long 
time after she had shown that act of charity, 


342 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


which he could never forget, the child had tried 
to see his benefactress again. But Paris is a very 
mysterious place, and he himself had had many 
adventures before he grew up to be a man, and, 
eventually, almost a celebrity. But he only found 
her in the distance; he had recognized her at the 
theatre, on the stage, or as she was getting into 
her carriage, which was fit for a princess. And 
how could he approach her then? Could he re- 
mind her of the time when her price was five 
francs? No, assuredly not; and so he had followed 
her, thanked her, and blessed her, from a dis- 
tance. 

But now the time had come for him to pay his 
debt, and he paid it. Although tolerably well 
known as a painter with a future in store for him, 
he was not rich. But what did that matter? He 
mortgaged that future which people foretold for 
him, and gave himself over, bound hand and foot, 
to a picture dealer. Then he had the poor woman 
taken to an excellent asylum, where she could 
have not only every care, but every necessary com- 
fort and even luxury. Alas ! however, general pa- 
ralysis never relents. Sometimes it releases its 
prey, as the cruel cat releases the mouse, for a 
brief moment, only to lay hold of it again later, 
more fiercely than ever. Fanny had that period 
of abatement in her symptoms, and One morning 
the physician was able to say to the young man: 
“You are anxious to remove her? Very well! 
But you will soon have to bring her back, for the 
cure is only apparent, and her present state will 


THE DEBT 


343 

only endure for a month, at most, and then only 
if the patient is kept free from every excitement 
and excess ! ” 

“ And without that precaution ? ” Guerland 
asked him. 

“ Then,” the doctor replied, “ the final crisis 
will be all the nearer; that is all. But whether it 
would be nearer or more remote, it will not be the 
less fatal.” 

“You are sure of that?” 

“ Absolutely sure.” 

Frangois Guerland took tall Fanny out of the 
asylum, installed her in splendid apartments, and 
went to live with her there. She had grown old, 
bloated, with white hair, and sometimes wandered 
in her mind, and she did not recognize in him the 
poor little lad on whom she had taken pity in the 
days gone by, nor did he remind her of the circum- 
stance. He allowed her to believe that she was 
adored by a rich young man who was passionately 
devoted to her. And so for three weeks, before 
she relapsed into the horrors of madness, which 
were happily soon terminated by her death, she 
lived in the belief that she was beloved by some 
one. 


******* 

The other day, at dessert, after an artists* din- 
ner, they were speaking of Frangois Guerland, 
whose last picture at the Salon had been so de- 
servedly praised. “Ah! yes/* one of them said, 


344 


GUY DE MAUPASSANT 


with a contemptuous voice and look. “That hand- 
some fellow, Guerland ! ” And another, accentu- 
ating the insinuation, added boldly: “Yes, that 
is exactly it ! That handsome, too handsome fellow, 
Guerland, the man who allows himself to be kept 
by women.” 








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